RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 


LEANOR  HARRIS  ROWLAND 


THE  EIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 


THE  EIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 


BY 


ELEANOR  HARRIS  ROWLAND,  Pn.D. 

INSTRUCTOR  IN  PHILOSOPHY  AND   PSYCHOLOGY 
IN   MOUNT   HOLYOKE    COLLEGE 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

re$£  Cambridge 
1909 


COPYRIGHT,    IQOQ,    BY   ELEANOR   HARRIS    ROWLAND 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  September  IQOQ 


TO  MY  FATHER 
LYMAN  SIBLEY  ROWLAND,  D.D. 

TO  WHOSE  CRITICISM  AND  APPROVAL 

I  WOULD  SO  GLADLY  SUBMIT 

THIS  BOOK 


CONTENTS 

• 

INTRODUCTION 

I.    THE  NECESSITY  FOR  A  BELIEF        ...  1 

II.  DOES  GOD  EXIST  ? 16 

III.  THE  NATURE  OF  GOD  AND  OF  MAN         .        .  56 

IV.  THE  DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST           ....  105 
V.  THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 140 

VI.  PRAYER 169 


INTRODUCTION 

IN  these  days  of  many  books,  the  appearance 
of  a  new  volume  seems  to  demand  from  its 
author  a  justification  of  his  right  to  foist 
more  print  on  an  already  over-burdened  public. 
This  explanation  is  the  more  necessary,  if  his 
book  treats  of  subjects  in  a  field  which  is  not 
his  own  ;  for  specialized  knowledge  has  come 
to  be  the  one  requisite  of  all  serious  authorship; 
and  in  order  to  put  some  brakes  on  too  ready 
pens,  we  demand  that  every  man  shall  stick  to 
his  trade.  Yet  with  all  this,  there  exists  a  cer- 
tain reverence  for  facts,  whether  their  ex- 
ploiter has  run  across  them  by  chance  or  by 
intention.  An  astronomer  has  the  right  to 
make  by-observations  on  the  flights  of  birds, 
even  though  his  telescope  be  pointed  at  the 
moon ;  nothing  need  prevent  a  man  from  ob- 
serving plant  heredity  even  though  his  pro- 
fession be  that  of  a  cloistered  monk ;  and  if  a 
teacher  of  psychology  has  happened  upon  some 
religious  facts  may  he  not  express  them, 
granted  that  they  are  facts  ? 

My  profession  is  one  that  naturally  gives 


x  INTRODUCTION 

rise  to  questions,  and  its  members  are  ex- 
pected to  give  answers  on  subjects  and  in 
terms  that  scarcely  lie  within  the  field  of  their 
special  knowledge.  It  is  also  true,  that  among 
the  thinking  public  of  America,  philosophical 
problems  present  themselves,  as  a  rule,  in  a  re- 
ligious guise,  and  that,  when  any  one  asks  of  a 
philosophically  minded  person  the  solution  of 
such  a  problem,  he  wants  an  answer  in  his  own 
terms,  not  in  a  vocabulary  to  which  he  is  not 
used,  and  which  either  confuses  or  chills  him 
by  its  strangeness. 

The  facts,  then,  are  these.  I  have  happened  to 
engage  in  discussion  with  some  twenty  persons, 
whose  minds  were  more  or  less  at  sea  in  re- 
ligious matters ;  and  while  their  starting-points 
were  different,  their  difficulties  fell  into  some- 
what well-defined  types.  The  method  which 
I  suggested  for  answering  certain  of  these 
questions  was  an  apparent  help  in  enough 
cases  to  justify  me  in  thinking  it  could  stand 
the  test  of  a  wider  audience.  To  any  criticism 
of  the  book  (and  there  may  be  many)  I  can 
always  reply :  It  has  answered  the  questions 
of  a  dozen  people.  I  claim  for  it  nothing 
more. 

There  are  four  types  of  doubter  to  which 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

I  am  accustomed.  The  first  is  the  ordinary 
student  of  college  grade  who  wishes  to  believe 
in  religious  truth,  but  is  troubled  by  the  ne- 
cessary readjustment  of  his  old  beliefs.  The 
second  is  the  professional  thinker  who  is  es- 
pecially trained  in  philosophical  thought  and 
language,  and  who,  if  he  has  any  prejudice, 
is  likely  to  have  it  rather  against  the  ordinary 
formulas  of  religion  than  for  them.  These 
two  classes  share,  however,  certain  respect 
for  authority,  the  one  for  the  orthodox  reli- 
gion, the  other  for  recognized  philosophical 
systems ;  and  they  have  a  background  of  ac- 
quaintance with  standard  questions  and  an- 
swers. The  third  type  is  the  business  man, 
who  is  untrained  in  school  thinking,  but  who 
possesses  a  large  share  of  the  logic  of  com- 
merce, and  who  recognizes  the  social  and  civic 
importance  of  religious  institutions.  He  is  apt 
to  feel  an  interest  in  religious  matters,  if  for 
no  other  reason,  because  of  his  church-going 
friends,  and  because  as  a  citizen  he  is  called 
upon  to  support  parish  expenses.  He  sees  that 
religion  is  a  powerful  motive  with  many 
people,  and  would  like  to  know  what  it  is  all 
about.  He  is  curious  and  conscientious,  but  he 
feels  that  the  time  for  any  emotional  expres- 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

sion  is  past  for  him,  and  since  sermons  do  not 
appeal  to  his  common  sense,  he  leaves  them  to 
his  family,  and  only  airs  his  doubts  and  opin- 
ions when  he  is  sure  that  he  can  do  so  without 
hurting  feelings  which  he  respects  but  does  not 
understand.  Lastly,  there  is  the  man  I  class 
broadly  as  "heathen,"  because  he  frankly 
considers  himself  in  that  light!  So  far  as 
knowledge  of  creeds,  respect  for  authority, 
reverence  for  any  conceivable  thing,  or  care 
for  his  own  or  other  souls  is  concerned,  he  can 
be  classed  un  der  no  other  head.  Without  pre j  u- 
dice  for  or  against  any  belief,  but  taking  a 
lively  interest  in  the  discussion  of  all  of  them, 
he  is  ready  to  embrace  brahminism  or  faith- 
healing  with  equal  blitheness.  In  a  certain 
sense  he  is  the  most  impartial  thinker  of  any, 
being  equally  disposed  toward  any  creed  or 
none ;  and  he  possesses  a  certain  honesty  and 
good  nature,  which  represent  practically  the 
only  virtues  for  which  he  has  a  shadow  of  re- 
spect. 

While  I  am  more  familiar  with  the  first  two 
classes  in  point  of  numbers,  my  discussions 
with  a  few  of  the  latter  were  so  much  more 
thorough  (since  they  took  nothing  for 
granted),  that  I  feel  that  as  examples  they 


INTRODUCTION  xiii  , 

have  a  value  in  intensiveness  which  they  lack 
in  extent. 

That  there  are  many  other  classes  of  people 
who  grope  for  religious  light,  and  demand  it 
in  a  more  emotional  form,  is  doubtless  true. 
They  would  be  untouched  by  this  sort  of  dis- 
cussion. But  I  can  only  repeat  that,  with  a 
certain  number  of  people  in  private  conversa- 
tion, the  same  questions  and  the  same  answers 
have  developed  naturally.  Their  questions  all 
imply  an  initial  interest  in  religion  from  what- 
ever motive,  and  a  demand  for  a  rational  belief, 
and  for  fearlessness  in  its  statement,  which  to 
others  might  be  disconcerting. 

o  o 

It  has  seemed  to  me  that  religion,  to  be  of 
real  use  in  a  modern  world,  should  be  capable 
of  experimental  treatment,  and  of  unfettered 
discussion,  which  for  the  sake  of  a  more  com- 
plete final  belief  takes  for  the  time  being  no- 
thing for  granted,  and  holds  nothing  sacred. 
The  reverential  attitude  which  is  natural  and 
proper  for  certain  types  of  believers  is  un- 
natural and  artificial  for  a  large  majority  of 
the  world,  and  this  other  class  demands  a 
meeting  on  its  own  ground,  and  a  calm  reason 
given  in  its  own  terms,  before  it  will  listen 
further. 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

This  is  said  to  forestall  the  possible  com- 
ment, that  great  truths  are  handled  in  the  fol- 
lowing pages  with  a  briskness  that  is  not  in 
harmony  with  their  significance.  But  it  has 
always  been  my  observation,  that  a  great 
truth,  like  a  great  man,  cannot  be  made 
mean  by  the  cut  of  its  clothes.  The  atmos- 
phere of  these  discussions  is  the  one  in  which 
my  questioners  found  it  easiest  to  move ;  I 
give  it  as  they  gave  it  to  me,  and  hasten  to 
assure  my  reader  that  their  attitude,  while  al- 
ways critical  and  often  humorous,  was  never 
flippant,  and  was  prompted  always  by  an  hon- 
est desire  for  the  truth. 

There  will  probably  be  some  in  my  audience 
who  will  recognize  in  the  following  discus- 
sions recastings  of  old  arguments,  which 
would  seem  to  demand  some  mention  of  their 
original  voicer.  The  book,  in  fact,  shows  the 
influence  of  so  many  thinkers,  past  and  pres- 
ent, that  any  indication  of  sources  would  be 
impossible.  The  author  often  does  not  know 
whether  she  is  plagiarizing  or  not,  so  entirely 
have  certain  habits  of  thought  become  her 

O 

own,  and  she  acknowledges  herself  a  debtor 
to  any  thinking  person  who  has  crossed  her 
path ! 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

Any  to  whom  these  discussions  seem  un- 
necessary must  not  read  the  book.  Those  to 
whom  no  questions  occur  can  afford  to  leave 
them  unanswered  ;  but  those  minds  haunted 
by  an  unresting  criticism  of  the  world  they 
live  in  have  no  choice  but  to  question. 

E.  H.  R. 

September,  1909. 


I    >        J 

.    „ 


THE  RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 


THE  NECESSITY  FOR  A  BELIEF 

THERE  must  always  be  a  common  starting-point 
for  fellow  travelers,  no  matter  how  far  afield 
their  several  journeys  may  end,  some  mutual 
solid  spot  of  ground,  however  airy  the  subse- 
quent flight ;  and  on  this  meeting-place  we 
must  agree,  if  we  are  to  understand  one  an- 
other. 

To  be  as  thorough  as  possible,  then,  let  us 
begin  by  doubting  every  shred  of  religious  be- 
lief. Some  of  us,  perhaps,  do  not  really  find 
ourselves  in  such  an  extremity;  on  the  other 
hand,  many  of  us  do,  and  in  order  to  start  to- 
gether we  must  try  to  strip  ourselves  of  every 
creed,  and  face  the  situation  of  one  who  not 
only  doubts,  but  sincerely  disbelieves  every  re- 
ligious tenet  with  which  he  is  acquainted. 

If  we  have  found  difficulties  with  religion, 
if  we  can  live  easily  without  it,  why  not  throw 
it  overboard  at  once,  and  live  a  quiet  life  with- 
out ?  This  is  the  method  we  employ  with  other 


2  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

outgrown  ideas.  We  believed  in  Santa  Glaus, 
we  had  difficulties  in  making  him  square  with 
the  rest  of  experience,  so  we  abandoned  him 
altogether.  We  had  primitive  notions  of  various 
sciences,  which  we  outgrew  without  a  pang, 
and  have  not  felt  the  slightest  responsibility 
toward  them  since.  Why,  then,  should  we  not 
take  the  same  attitude  toward  religious  truth? 

o 

If  we  find  a  belief  in  God,  in  immortality,  in 
Christ,  in  prayer,  difficult  and  irrational,  what 
possible  compunction  need  we  have  in  drop- 
ping the  subject  forever? 

Surely  this  question  cannot  be  answered  by 
saying  that  we  owe  it  to  God  to  believe  in  Him, 
because  as  yet  we  do  not  believe  that  He  exists. 
The  commands  of  the  Bible  are  without  weight, 
since  we  have  no  belief  in  its  authority;  and 
that  we  are  adjured  to  believe  by  certain  de- 
votees need  have  no  more  weight  than  any 
other  unjustified  demand.  Why,  then,  do  we 
concern  ourselves  at  all  in  the  matter?  If 
there  were  not  some  vitality  in  these  questions, 
they  would  have  died  a  natural  death  long  ago ; 
and  while  we  maintain  our  right  not  to  be  in- 
terested in  the  subject,  the  fact  remains  that 
we  are  interesting  ourselves  with  it,  at  this 
very  moment ;  and  why  are  we  doing  it  ? 


THE  NECESSITY  FOR  A   BELIEF         3 

Probably  the  reasons  why  we  have  not 
dropped  our  belief  in  religion  without  a  strug- 
gle, or  the  reasons  why,  though  we  are  without 
belief,  religion  still  possesses  a  certain  interest 
for  us  in  spite  of  its  irrationality,  are  some- 
what similar.  One  reason  is  that,  in  spite  of  in- 
dividual differences  in  our  training  and  tem- 
perament, religious  questions  are  so  interwoven 
with  our  whole  social  life  that  an  absolute  ignor- 
ing of  them  is  impossible.  Every  Sunday  we 
see  the  astonishing  spectacle  of  crowds  of  peo- 
ple going  to  church,  addressing  prayers  to  an 
unseen  Presence,  and  taking  upon  themselves 
the  expounding  of  his  character.  Public  cere- 
monies are  opened  with  prayer,  it  is  considered 
fitting  to  christen  children  with  prayer,  and  we 
feel  a  poetry  in  this  exercise  for  the  old,  as 
well.  Moreover,  since  constant  decisions  must 
be  made  between  two  courses,  one  of  which  we 
call  right,  the  other  wrong,  we  are  obliged  to 
ask  ourselves  whether  the  distinction  is  a  valid 
one,  and  whether  we  are  not  fools  for  our 
pains,  if  we  sacrifice  an  advantage  to  an  ideal 
which  we  cannot  defend.  Or  if  we  call  our- 
selves outside  the  pale  of  all  this  religious  and 
moral  activity,  the  very  fact  that  we  do  so 
constantly  drives  home  the  fact  that  we  are 


4  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

in  some  important  respect  different  from  the 
rest  of  the  world,  and  we  wonder  if  they  can 
explain  their  position  as  well  as  we  explain 
ours.  Further  than  all  this,  when  we  outgrow 
the  Santa  Glaus  superstition  and  childish  scien- 
tific notions,  we  feel  no  regrets,  because  we 
have  replaced  them  by  something  broader  and 
more  satisfying,  and  we  can  afford  to  smile  at 
them  in  the  light  of  a  more  extensive  know- 
ledge. But  if  we  have  lost  our  religious  belief, 
nothing  entirely  takes  its  place.  Philosophy 
is  frankly  unable  to  supply  a  substitute.  Like 
science  it  simply  leaves  the  way  open  for  a  man 
to  accept  certain  views  if  he  chooses,  and  does 
not  pretend  to  supply  the  vigorous  belief  in 
unseen  things  that  religion  holds  as  its  special 
trust.  If  this  indifferent  state  of  mind  is  wholly 
satisfying  to  a  man  in  regard  to  the  matter; 
if  he  is  content  to  be  out  of  it  and  allow  these 
religious  questions  to  remain  unanswered,  what 
shall  we  say?  As  a  free  being,  he  has  the  right 
to  choose  what  he  will  accept  and  what  he  will 
ignore,  but  as  a  thinking  being  he  must  do  it 
with  his  eyes  open.  He  must  not  suppose  that 
his  ignoring  a  religious  belief  is  a  proof  of  its 
falsity,  any  more  than  the  reiterations  of  a  be- 
liever are  proofs  of  its  truth.  There  were  three 


THE  NECESSITY   FOR   A   BELIEF         5 

simple  and  apparently  obvious  Laws  of  Thought 
expounded  by  Aristotle,  the  third  of  which  is 
called  the  "  Law  of  Excluded  Middle."  The 
substance  of  this  axiom  is  "  A  thing  must  either 
be  or  not  be  ";  and  while  its  statement  seems 
obvious  to  the  point  of  flatness,  we  ignore  its 
truth  during  a  large  part  of  our  lives.  This 
rule  means  simply  that  in  the  case  of  two  contra- 
dictory statements,  one  or  the  other  must  be 
true.  There  are  but  two  alternatives  to  face, 
with  any  belief-  -religious  or  otherwise:  — 
either  it  is  true,  or  it  is  not  true;  there  is  no 
middle  ground. 

Therefore  a  logical  man  who  abandons  one 

o 

side  of  the  controversy  because  it  is  not  sup- 
ported by  facts,  must  not  remain  on  the  other 
unless  that  is  adequately  proved ;  but  at  the 
same  time  he  cannot  avoid  being  on  one  side 
or  the  other.  The  difficulty  here  arises,  that  the 
contradictory  proposition  may  be  as  unproved 
as  the  first,  and  yet  logically  one  or  the  other 
must  be  true,  —  a  third  possibility  is  excluded. 
In  any  such  situation  as  this,  if  the  second 
proposition  can  be  satisfactorily  proved,  the 
doubter  finds  rest  and  goes  no  further;  but 
the  fact  of  the  matter  is,  that  belief  in  unbelief 
is  as  difficult  to  support  as  belief  in  religious 


6  THE   RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

truths,  and  the  logical  man,  who  demands  a 
reason,  is  thereby  tossed  back  and  forth  on  the 
horns  of  the  dilemma  until  he  lands  in  the  an- 
nihilation of  utter  skepticism  toward  both  sides. 
If  it  were  possible,  one  might  leave  him  here  in 
peace.  But  these  questions  as  a  rule  only  stay 
in  the  dark  for  a  season,  to  return  again ;  while 
if  they  are  dulled  forever,  the  resulting  calm 
is  as  irrational  and  as  unjustified  by  logic  as 
the  wildest  superstition.  It  is,  indeed,  the  super- 
stition of  unproved  disbelief. 

We  will  count  out  of  our  audience,  then, 
the  religious  enthusiast  and  the  unbelieving 
enthusiast,  who  demand  no  reasons,  and  will 
consider  the  case  of  those  who  are  still  asking 
for  proof  of  either  position.  In  my  experience, 
both  sides  are  usually  in  a  similarly  weak  situa- 
tion logically.  The  ordinary  man  is  not  compre- 
hensively logical,  be  he  religious  or  otherwise ; 
most  of  us  are  subject  to  fallacy,  and  if  our 
destiny  depended  on  our  ability  to  give  an 
accurate  statement  of  our  views  about  it,  a 
large  majority  of  us  would  be  in  a  sad  case. 
But  granting  this  human  tendency  to  error, 
which  side  can  give  the  most  convincing  argu- 
ment ?  If  neither  side  is  convincing,  what  is 
the  next  thing  to  be  done  ? 


THE  NECESSITY   FOR   A   BELIEF         7 

The  obvious  answer  seems  to  be, — if  neither 
belief  nor  unbelief  can  support  itself  by  proof, 
hold  your  judgment  in  suspense,  and  do  not 
act  in  the  matter  until  you  get  more  light. 
This  is  our  way  of  treating  other  rival  theories. 
Two  or  more  hypotheses  may  be  stated  in  a 
text-book,  and  the  student  is  advised  not  to 
commit  himself  absolutely  to  either.  This  is 
quite  admissible  in  the  case  of  theories  of 
geological  formation,  of  color  vision,  or  of  so- 
cial questions  where  one  is  not  required  to  act 
on  the  matter  immediately.  But  the  peculiarity 
of  religious  beliefs  is  that  they  demand  action 
at  once,  one  way  or  the  other.  While  you  are 
waiting  for  further  proof  in  this  debate,  either 
you  are  praying,  or  you  are  not ;  you  are  accept- 
ing a  responsibility  to  a  Higher  Being,  or  you 
are  not ;  you  are  teaching  your  children  reli- 
gious truth,  or  you  are  not.  In  other  words, 
the  Law  of  Excluded  Middle  seems  to  hold  as 
well  in  action  as  in  thought,  and  however  long 
a  time  you  may  take  to  make  up  your  rational 
conclusions,  your  active  life  waits  not  for  an 
answer,  but  is  proceeding  on  one  hypothesis 
or  the  other.  It  is,  then,  quite  obvious  that 
however  the  cautious  thinker  may  hope  to  hold 
suspended  judgment  in  his  life  of  reason,  his 


8  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

life  of  action  in  the  mean  time  is  proceeding 
as  if  he  believed  one  way  or  the  other. 

Perhaps  this  last  statement  is  not  strictly 
true  in  life  as  we  find  it.  The  usual  life  of  a 
man  in  this  position  is  apt  to  be  colored  by 
both  beliefs.  At  one  moment  he  acts  as  if  he 
believed,  and  is  perhaps  shamefaced,  knowing 
that  he  cannot  justify  it ;  while  again  he  re- 
stores the  balance  by  actions  proceeding  from 
the  opposite  conviction.  But  this  shifting  of 
motive  power  is  as  illogical  as  any,  and  is  a 
damper  to  any  sort  of  vigorous  output.  The 
situation  is  like  that  of  a  child  who  cannot  de- 
cide whether  he  wants  to  go  walking  with  his 
father  or  with  his  mother,  and  runs  back  and 
forth  from  one  to  the  other,  until  at  last  he  falls 
to  crying  halfway  between  them.  He  may  not 
really  love  his  father  better  than  his  mother, 
but  for  the  time  being  he  must  prefer  one  of 
them,  if  he  wants  to  go  walking  !  Now  we,  as 
living  human  beings,  are  obliged  "  to  go  walk- 
ing" somewhere,  and  the  question  is  whether 
it  is  not  better  to  walk  in  a  given  direction 
with  one  opinion  or  the  other,  than  to  take 
our  promenade  between  them,  turning  our 
back  one  moment  on  what  we  had  embraced 
the  moment  previous.  Granting,  then,  that  we 


THE  NECESSITY   FOR  A   BELIEF         9 

want  to  commit  ourselves  to  one  or  the  other 
side  entirely,  and  not  halt  between  two  opin- 
ions, which  is  the  safer  side  to  use  as  an  act- 
ing hypothesis  until  we  have  proved  our  posi- 
tion? It  will  take  most  of  us  some  time  to 
answer  the  difficulties  on  either  side ;  and  since 
we  must  act  in  the  mean  time,  which  is  more 
likely  to  give  us  satisfaction  and  least  likely 
to  get  us  into  trouble  ?  "  If  the  trumpet  give 
an  uncertain  sound,  who  shall  prepare  himself 
to  battle  ? '  A  divided  mind  is  a  weariness,  a 
hindrance  to  action,  and  at  the  same  time  it 
is  wholly  illogical.  A  single  purpose  is  at  least 
rational  itself,  and  since  we  must  take  our 
chances  on  the  result  in  either  case,  which  is 
the  safer  road  to  travel  ? 

I  do  not  pretend,  of  course,  that  I  have  not 
a  conviction  toward  one  opinion  or  the  other, 
but  I  am  trying  to  answer  this  difficulty  as  an 
outsider,  simply  on  the  testimony  of  the  dif- 
ferent people  who  have  raised  the  question 
with  me.  Certainly  the  most  obvious  conclu- 
sion I  draw  from  them  is  that  religious  belief 

o 

is  more  satisfactory  than  religious  unbelief  to 
the  person  concerned.  My  interlocutors,  if  not 
always  worried,  were  usually  at  least  pensive 
about  what  they  had  ceased  to  believe,  and 


10  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

envied  the  situation  of  one  who  could  believe 
and  yet  keep  his  countenance.  Some  of  them 
had  no  regrets  for  what  they  did  not  believe, 
but  were  equally  apathetic  about  their  skep- 
ticism. In  fact,  the  phrase  I  have  used  above, 
of  "unbelieving  enthusiast,"  while  logically 
correct,  fits  no  person  of  my  acquaintance.  The 
nearest  approach  to  enthusiasm  in  these  unbe- 
lievers was  a  certain  warmth  in  pointing  out 
the  weakness  of  the  other  side ;  but  in  no  case 
was  their  own  situation  described  in  glowing 
terms.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have  never  met 
any  one  with  regrets  over  his  beliefs.  Since 
the  religious  situation  of  every  thinking  man 
varies  with  his  training  and  the  progress  of 
his  development,  each  man  as  a  rule  has  varied 
shreds  of  belief  clinging  to  him,  even  though 
in  the  main  he  is  an  unbeliever.  Apparently 
these  shreds  do  not  worry  him,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  give  him  a  certain  satisfaction,  so 
that  he  is  not  trying  to  shake  them  off  as  he 
is  his  doubts.  If  religious  belief  is  more  satis- 
factory than  unbelief,  it  has  then  one  impor- 
tant fact  in  its  favor  as  a  working  hypothesis. 
That  religious  faith,  if  acted  upon,  often 
leads  to  tremendous  sacrifice  and  hardship,  I 
do  not  deny.  But  I  am  not  following  all  pos- 


THE   NECESSITY  FOR  A  BELIEF       11 

sible  resultant  actions  to  their  end.  Both  be- 
lief and  unbelief  have  had  their  martyrs,  as 
any  extremes  may  have  them;  but  that  a  cer- 
tian  profound  satisfaction  and  enthusiasm, 
even  in  misfortune,  pervade  the  religious  man, 
and  are  absent  in  the  unbeliever,  seems  un- 
deniably true  in  all  history. 

I  have  spoken  of  religious  belief  in  a  gen- 
eral way,  as  if  it  needed  no  definition  ;  but  I 
must  indicate  a  little  more  fully  what  we  shall 
mean  by  the  term.  I  do  not  mean  all  the  pos- 
sible beliefs  that  one  finds  stated  in  orthodox 
creeds,  as  if  they  were  of  equal  importance. 
Some  standard  church  beliefs  can  apparently 
be  shaken  off  with  no  feeling  of  loss  to  the 
doubter,  while  others  seem  most  essential.  It 
is  these  more  important  conceptions  which  give 
life  and  meaning  to  the  whole,  that  I  have  in 
mind  when  I  use  the  term  "  belief."  I  have 
arbitrarily  selected  what  beliefs  in  my  observa- 
tion cannot  be  lost  without  a  wrench,  and  shall 
not  consider  those  which  have  apparently 
caused  no  especial  anxiety  to  my  questioners. 

mean  then  by  Religion,  a  belief  in  the  ex- 
istence of  God,  the  authority  of  Christ  as 
exponent  of  God's  nature,  the  responsibility 
of  man,  the  value  of  prayer,  and  the  immor- 


12  THE  RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

tality  of  the  soul.  Perhaps  the  inspiration  of  the 
Bible,  especially  with  regard  to  miracles,  is  a 
source  of  difficulty  to  all,  although  a  lif  e-and- 
death  interest  in  this  question  is  not  so  common. 
I  think  it  is  not  a  perverted  optimism  in  even 
a  religious  person  to  consider  a  certain  honest 
doubt  a  healthy  sign  in  society.  So  long  as 
a  man  vigorously  doubts,  he  is  alive,  and  in 
a  much  more  hopeful  state  than  a  careless  as- 
senter  or  a  rigid  unbeliever.  Doubt  at  least 
implies  a  leaning  of  the  mind  in  two  directions; 
and  while  more  illogical  than  a  thoroughgoing 
belief  in  either  side,  it  at  least  is  better  for 
life-purposes  than  complete  unbelief.  No  one 
bothers  to  doubt  the  authorship  of  newspaper 
poetry,  because  no  one  cares  who  wrote  it; 
while  the  authorship  of  the  Iliad,  of  Shake- 
speare's plays,  and  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  ex- 
cites endless  discussion,  because  we  care  very 
much  who  wrote  them. 

So  it  is  with  religious  creeds.  If  society 
were  willing  to  dismiss  them  to  historians,  and 
remark,  "Oh  yes,  I  dare  say  this  is  all  true," 
it  would  be  in  a  more  serious  state  than  when 
it  finds  them  so  important  that  honest  criti- 
cism compels  it  to  doubt  them.  In  my  opinion, 
there  is  no  duty  imposed  on  any  man  to  accept 


THE  NECESSITY   FOR  A   BELIEF        13 

anything  against  which  his  reason  rebels.  The 
first  virtue  for  thought  is  absolute  honesty, 
and  the  cloaking  of  irrationality  in  virtuous 
garb  is  entirely  uncalled  for.  Religious  faith 
needs  no  crutch,  and  a  rational  man  should 
accept  it  with  his  eyes  and  intellect  open.  He 
must  demand  proof  in  such  cases  as  those  in 
which  he  demands  proof  in  the  rest  of  his  ra- 
tional life;  he  must  not  demand  it  where  he 
does  not  demand  it  in  his  other  rational  life. 
To  sum  up  our  position  as  far  as  we  have 
gone :  granting  that  we  have  lost  religious 
faith  because  of  honest  doubt  and  perhaps 
positive  disbelief,  we  cannot  go  from  one 
unproved  position  to  another :  we  must  prove 
our  disbelief  as  well.  In  other  words,  we  must 
be  on  the  defensive  and  prove  that  there  is  no 
God,  that  Christ  has  no  authority,  that  the 
soul  is  not  immortal,  and  that  man  is  not  a 
free  agent.  Let  there  be  no  misunderstanding. 
Eventually,  as  rational  beings,  we  must  accept 
one  position  or  the  other.  These  religious 
statements  are  true  or  they  are  false.  But  in 
the  mean  time,  we  must  doubt  and  criticise 
both  sides  impartially.  We  must  hold  both 
opinions  as  real  possibilities,  in  order  to  dis- 
cuss them.  Logically  we  are  not  yet  ready  to 


14  THE   RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

make  up  our  minds,  but  actively  we  are  as  if 
we  had  decided  one  way  or  the  other. 

As  a  practical  position,  then,  at  the  start, 
it  would  seem  as  if,  since  religion  gives  more 
satisfaction  than  the  lack  of  it,  since  it  lends 
more  significance  to  life  to  conceive  our  ex- 
istence as  immortal,  and  since  there  is  at  least 
an  equal  chance  that  a  prayer  to  an  Unseen 
Being  is  heard  and  meets  with  some  kind  of 
response,  belief  is  the  safer  principle  to  adopt. 
A  positive  exercise  of  this  sort  can  be  dropped 
if  we  change  our  minds,  but  is  not  so  easily 
learned  by  a  mind  unused  to  it.  It  is  almost 
always  easier  to  forget  a  technique  than  to 
acquire  it;  and  since  nothing  in  unbelief  has 
been  lost  in  the  mean  time  (that  is,  no  exer- 
cise the  opposite  of  prayer,  no  action  we  must 
hasten  to  perform  in  case  we  are  not  to  live 
eternally),  surely  nothing  has  been  lost,  and 
half  a  chance  of  something  has  been  gained. 

I  cannot  see  how  a  perfectly  candid,  logical 
soul  could  argue  otherwise.  The  reason  why 
we  do  not  act  on  this  simple  basis  of  accept- 
ing for  the  time  being  the  richer  of  two  un- 
proved possibilities  is  that  we  are  not  so  calmly 
rational  as  we  think.  The  fear  of  being  ridi- 
culous, a  certain  indolence,  a  timidity,  a  pride 


THE  NECESSITY   FOR  A  BELIEF        15 

in  spiritual  poor  health,  if  not  a  sin  of  graver 
character,  makes  us  rather,  as  before  indi- 
cated, half  -  choose  the  possibilities  on  both 
sides,  and,  having  exerted  enough  energy  to 
think  ourselves  into  trouble,  decline  to  think 
ourselves  out  again.  Since,  as  assumed  at  the 
outset,  it  was  a  rational  difficulty  that  shook 
our  faith,  certainly  this  abandonment  of  rea- 
son is  the  most  contradictory  and  vicious  pro- 
ceeding If  we  can  leave  logic  alone,  and 
emotionally  accept  the  larger  and  more  signi- 
ficant life  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  well  and 
good.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  chosen 
rigid  thinking  as  our  guide,  let  us  stick  to  it, 
whichever  way  it  leads  us,  acting  in  the  mean 
time  on  the  larger  chance,  as  we  would  do  in 
any  less  important  matter,  where  there  was 
everything  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose.  The 
third  course,  that  of  accepting  a  thorough  un- 
belief, emotionally  and  enthusiastically,  is  pos- 
sible in  theory,  but  you  have  not  done  it,  or  / 
you  would  not  be  reading  this.  f 


II 

DOES  GOD  EXIST? 

WE  have  agreed  on  our  first  proposition, 
that  a  thinking  man  must  believe  in  some- 
thing, since  every  statement  must  be  true  or 
false,  and  it  remains  for  us  to  marshal  our 
doubted  beliefs,  our  faiths  that  have  ceased  to 
deserve  the  name,  and  investigate  the  grounds 
on  which  they  rest. 

We  will  beffin  with  the  most  fundamental 

C5 

question  of  all  religions,  —  does  God  exist  or 
does  He  not  ?-  -because  on  its  answer  depends 
all  that  is  to  follow.  If  there  is  no  God,  eth- 
ical questions  may  still  remain,  but  religion 
strictly  speaking  has  ceased  to  exist,  and  re- 
ligious observance  is  a  meaningless  ceremony. 
We  may  approach  this  question  directly  or  by 
a  more  roundabout  road,  and  in  such  a  dis- 
cussion as  this,  the  latter  is  the  more  obvious 
way.  That  is,  instead  of  considering  first  the 
proof  of  His  existence,  we  will  criticise  the 
evidence  usually  advanced  for  His  non-exist- 
ence, and  later  can  judge  on  which  side  we 
have  more  convincing  data. 


DOES   GOD  EXIST?  17 

We  must  place  ourselves  at  the  outset  in  a 
state  of  impartial  doubt,  that  is,  we  must  ad- 
mit the  possibility  that  He  is,  or  that  He  is  not, 
or,  in  other  words,  doubt  His  non-existence  as 
well  as  the  opposite. 

The  first  reason  usually  given  for  disbelief 
in  a  God  is,  that  we  must  accept  the  evidence 
of  the  senses,  and  since  we  do  not  see,  feel, 
or  hear  God,  why  should  we  assume  that 
there  is  one?  It  is  an  unwarrantable  super- 
stition, with  no  experimental  basis.  A  second 
reason  is  that  the  qualities  that  inhere  in  the 
concept  of  Godhead  are  so  incomprehensible 
that  the  mind  reels  before  them,  and  that  any- 
thing which  is  so  confessedly  beyond  being 
understood,  becomes  a  meaningless  string  of 
phrases  with  no  savor  of  reality.  The  moment 
God  becomes  a  clearly  explained  credible  being, 
there  is  no  use  for  Him  in  the  world.  As  in- 
comprehensible He  does  not  exist,  as  compre- 
hended He  is  not  a  God  ;  hence  the  concept  is 
a  contradiction,  and  the  economy  of  thought 
demands  that  we  shall  not  introduce  Him  into 
a  world  that  is  more  easily  explained  without 
Him.  A  third  reason  against  belief  in  Him  is 
that  the  characteristic  of  goodness  is  always 
attached  to  God,  and  since  evil  is  so  universal 


18  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

in  the  world,  no  good  being  could  have  created 
it. 

It  will  be  seen  that  only  the  first  two  types 
of  objectors  strike  a  direct  blow  at  God's  exist- 
ence. These  disbelievers  pin  their  faith  to 
scientific  proof,  or  to  logical  statement,  and 
they  therefore  choose  to  accept  only  that  which 
of  its  nature  admits  of  experimental  or  log- 
ical handling.  Since  the  Deity  cannot  be  ex- 
pounded in  this  way,  the  question  lies  outside 
the  pale  of  science,  and  what  lies  outside  the 
range  of  science  or  of  logic  is  untrue. 

These  classes  have  valid  enough  reasons  for 
objection,  if  they  carry  them  to  their  conclu- 
sion, and  will  agree  to  disbelieve  anything 
which  does  not  admit  of  scientific  proof  or  of 
logical  definition.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
do  not  demand  the  same  grounds  for  belief  in 
other  accepted  truths,  they  must  not  do  so 
here. 

The  third  class  denies  the  existence  not  of 
a  God,  but  of  a  good  God,  because  there  is  so 
much  evil  (and  logically,  I  suppose,  of  a  bad 
God  because  there  is  so  much  good) ;  and 
since  His  character  is  assumed  to  be  consist- 
ent if  anything,  and  the  world  is  not  so,  the 
existence  of  such  a  God  and  such  a  world  is 


DOES  GOD  EXIST?  19 

found  incompatible,  and  belief  is  dropped.  If 
they  could  be  shown  either  that  the  world  is 
consistent  one  way  or  the  other,  or  that  God 
need  not  be  consistent,  they  must  abandon 
their  position. 

Do  we,  then,  make  scientific  proof  and  the 
evidence  of  the  senses  a  basis  for  belief  in 
other  matters  ?  In  many  cases  we  undoubtedly 
do  up  to  a  certain  point.  The  senses  are  the 
usual  guides  for  our  information,  and  we  are 
not  able  to  build  up  our  most  complex  imagi- 
nations without  sense  symbols  of  some  kind. 
Not  only  this,  but  we  have  become  accustomed 
to  give  certain  senses  more  credence  than 
others.  The  eye  has  come  to  be  accepted  as  our 
more  reliable  informant.  The  cavity  which  my 
tooth  once  filled  feels  large  to  my  tongue  and 
looks  small  to  my  eye, -  — therefore,  which  is 
it?  Since  we  see  more  things  to  compare  with 
it  than  we  feel  with  our  tongue,  we  arbitra- 
rily decide,  small.  I  hear  a  voice  but  see  no 
speaker,  therefore  I  decide  I  did  not  hear  it, 
but  only  thought  I  did.  Thus  the  different 
senses  are  continually  correcting  one  another, 
and  vision,  since  it  has  developed  with  us  a 
wider  range  and  more  acute  discrimination, 
casts  in  most  cases  the  final  vote.  If  we  lose 


20  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

our  vision,  we  shift  our  faith  to  hearing  or 
touch,  and  if  we  lose  all  our  avenues  of  sensa- 
tion-approach, what  happens  ?  Certainly  I  do 
not  cease  to  exist  for  my  own  consciousness 
because  you  cannot  see,  hear,  or  feel  me,  and 
because  I  am  lost  to  yours.  My  non-existence 
to  you  because  of  your  incapacity  for  sensa- 
tion proves  nothing  whatever  about  my  exist- 
ence to  other  consciousness  or  to  my  own.  So 
we  might  say,  "  Because  you  cannot  see,  hear, 
or  feel  God,  nothing  whatever  is  proved  as  to 
His  being  or  non-being."  The  natural  reply 
to  this  is,  of  course,  that  you  are  not  alone  in 
this  ansesthesia,  if  we  may  so  call  it.  All  the 
world  unites  in  not  seeing  or  hearing  Him ; 
and  if  no  one  has  had  this  sensation,  it  is  a 
world-experience,  not  an  individual  one,  and 
as  such  we  must  accept  it  as  true. 

Even  here,  however,  the  point  is  not  proved. 
There  are  many  things  that  we  accept,  and 
yet  no  one  has  ever  seen  them  or  ever  will. 
Grant  that  the  current  proof  of  a  stone's  ex- 
istence is  that  we  see  and  feel  it,  the  reality 
of  the  law  of  gravitation,  in  which  we  equally 
believe,  we  neither  see  nor  feel.  You  may  in- 
spect the  stone  ever  so  carefully  and  you  find 
no  law,  nor  will  you  find  one  in  the  earth, 


DOES  GOD  EXIST?  21 

toward  which  it  falls.  That  is,  certain  exist- 
ences are  of  their  nature  unapproachable  by 
sensation,  and  far  from  disbelieving  in  them 
because  of  that,  you  make  no  demands  that 
evidence  of  their  reality  shall  be  presented  in 
such  terms.  The  falling  stone  you  see,  the 
law  governing  its  fall  you  never  do,  and  yet 
you  give  one  as  hearty  credence  as  the  other, 
because  the  law  of  gravitation  is  the  most 
orderly  and  satisfactory  way  of  explaining  the 
phenomena  of  falling  bodies. 

If  an  existence  is  of  its  very  nature  unap- 
proachable by  sensation,  there  is  no  point  in 
demanding  such  a  proof  of  its  existence.  Sup- 
pose, then,  that  it  be  admitted  that  abstract 
laws  are  beyond  such  experience,  and  the  same 
is  true  of  certain  material  substances,  such  as 
atoms  or  ether.  Still,  it  might  be  contended 
that  in  the  case  of  personality  (which  is  the 
religious  conception  of  God)  we  do  demand 
the  witness  of  sensation.  We  only  believe  in  a 
person  when  we  see  him  or  believe  him  pos- 
sible of  being  seen  by  some  one,  and  a  person 
without  some  tangible  evidence  of  his  existence 
is  the  same  as  if  he  were  not.  Here  wre  must 
go  very  carefully.  As  was  suggested  above, 
the  situation  is  perhaps  different  in  the  case 


22  THE   EIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

of  consciousness  from  what  it  is  with  material 
objects.  Granting  that  to  be  real  a  being 
must  exist  somehow  for  some  consciousness, 
it  cannot  be  denied  that  a  personality  can 
exist  for  its  own  consciousness,  even  if  others 
are  blind  to  it ;  and  no  amount  of  disbelief 
by  other  minds  can  put  it  out  of  existence  for 
itself.  Thus  logically  we  cannot  deny  the  pos- 
sible existence  of  any  number  of  invisible,  in- 
tangible beings,  of  whom,  because  of  the  limi- 
tations of  our  sense-organs  (which  after  all 
respond  to  a  very  small  fraction  of  the  vibra- 
tions in  the  material  world),  we  are  uncon- 
scious, and  whom  we  customarily  dismiss  as 
unreal.  This  apparently  opens  the  door  to  the 
wildest  fancy, —  to  the  possibility  of  not  one 
God,  but  many,  —  and  this  real  possibility  is 
all  I  ask  at  this  point. 

The  doubter  who  has  put  unhesitating  con- 
fidence in  any  personality  that  expresses  itself 
to  him  through  sensations,  must  admit  the 
real  logical  possibility  that  a  personality  might 
exist  appealing  to  no  sensation  of  his  what- 
ever, and  yet  exist  just  as  really  for  itself.  We 
can  even  go  a  step  further.  By  no  possibility 
would  a  scientific  man  believe  in  God  any  more 
than  he  does  now,  if  there  were  an  appeal  to 


DOES   GOD  EXIST?  23 

every  one  of  his  senses.  Suppose  he  saw  a 
manifestation  of  some  sort  which  called  itself 
God,  —  if  he  alone  saw  it,  he  would  call  it  an 
hallucination  ;  if  all  the  world  saw  it,  it  would 
be  classified  as  a  visual  phenomenon,  more  or 
less  extraordinary  as  it  was  rarely  or  often 
seen.  Men  have  always  been  hearing  voices, 
which,  however  they  might  themselves  con- 
sider them,  have  been  labeled  as  nervous  af- 

s 

fections  by  the  rest  of  the  world  ;  and  in  one 
celebrated  instance,  where  a  voice  was  heard 
by  several,  the  rest  of  the  company  declared 
it  had  but  thundered. 

In  these  cases  I  cannot  see  that  any  blame 
attaches  to  a  non-believer.  The  lack  of  cre- 
dence given  to  a  sensation-stimulus  of  possible 
divine  origin  proceeds  from  the  tacit  admis- 
sion, on  the  part  of  us  all,  that  this  is  not  the 
basis  of  approach  to  the  kind  of  personality  we 
conceive  as  God.  Whatever  may  be  His  nature, 
which  we  shall  try  to  define  later,  we  agree 
more  or  less  consciously  on  the  idea  that  a 
Godlike  personality  not  only  does  not  depend 
on  sensation  as  proof  of  His  existence,  but  by 
no  sensation-proof  that  we  can  think  of  would 
the  scientific  thinker  be  forced  to  believe  in 
Him.  I  do  not  mean  that  it  follows  from  the 


24  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

foregoing  that  God  could  not  make  a  sensation- 
approach  of  some  kind,  but  simply  that  such 
a  sensation  would  prove  nothing  whatever  as 
to  its  origin. 

Our  first  objector  is  in  the  situation  of 
asserting,  "  I  will  not  believe  in  God  if  I 
cannot  reach  Him  through  sensation,  and  I 
will  not  believe  in  Him  if  I  can  reach  Him 
through  sensation ! '  His  existence  has  then 
ceased  to  be  a  real  possibility,  and  the  doubt 
is  no  longer  an  impartial  one. 

We  must  therefore  make  a  readjustment  of 
our  point  of  view.  There  is  no  sense  surely  in 
demanding  a  sensation-proof  of  God's  exist- 
ence, if  we  would  not  believe  in  it  if  produced. 
If  the  question  is  to  remain  an  open  one,  we 
must  make  some  other  demand,  the  fulfillment 
of  which  will  be  considered  a  sufficient  ground 
for  belief.  A  large  amount  of  discussion  goes 
on,  in  any  department  of  knowledge,  from 
the  simple  fact  that  the  disputants  do  not 
know  when  they  have  finished.  Since  they 
have  never  distinctly  formulated  to  themselves 
what  must  be  proved  to  gain  their  point,  and 
what  counter-proofs  mean  their  own  discom- 
fiture, they  go  on  and  on,  neither  side  discov- 
ering whether  it  has  gained  or  lost. 


DOES  GOD  EXIST?  25 

We  must  try  to  avoid  this  human  failing, 
by  continually  asking,  "  Is  this  question  still 
an  open  one?  Are  both  hypotheses  really 
alive? '  If  one  hypothesis  is  not  alive,  that  is, 
if  we  can  conceive  no  possible  system  of  evi- 
dence that  would  be  accepted  as  proof  of  it,  it 
is  absolutely  without  point  to  discuss  the  ques- 
tion further.  As  we  said  at  the  beginning,  we 
must  doubt  both  hypotheses  impartially,  and  if 
our  position  is  such  that  we  say,  "  By  no  pos- 
sible evidence  could  you  prove  your  hypothe- 
sis— there  is  no  conceivable  testimony  I  would 
accept,"  we  have  put  ourselves  out  of  the  game. 
This  is  entirely  different  from  saying,  "  Such 
and  such  evidence  I  would  accept,  but  I  know 
you  can  never  get  it."  This  is  a  fair  enough 
remark  for  any  one  to  make.  But  the  other 
position  is  equivalent  to  demanding  a  proof 
for  something  we  have  put  outside  the  range 
of  possible  evidence,  and  as  such  it  is  not  a 
fit  subject  for  argument.  We  should  then  be 
in  the  class  excluded  from  our  audience,  of 
irrational  believers  in  unbelief. 

I  am  insisting  rather  strongly  on  this  point, 
because  it  is  where  the  argument  with  the  first 
type  of  objector  is  likely  to  stop.  He  has  de- 
manded a  type  of  proof  which  he  sees  he  does 


26  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

not  want,  and  being  prepared  with  no  other 
demand  whose  fulfillment  will  convince  him, 
one  must  begin  over  again  on  a  more  con- 
structive basis,  showing  him  what  he  ought  to 
accept  as  proof,  and  then  producing  the  evi- 
dence if  possible. 

Our  second  type  of  objector  did  not  go  so 
far  as  to  demand  sensation-testimony  for  God. 
He  would  be  willing  to  accept  God  as  he  ac- 
cepts an  abstract  law,  if  the  formulation  of 
the  idea  of  God  were  clear  enough  to  satisfy 
his  reason.  But  he  recognizes  that  logical 
statement  can  be  only  in  known  and  defin- 
able terms;  and  since  the  conception  of  God 
is  confessedly  too  great  for  complete  under- 
standing, it  is  therefore  outside  the  range  of 
thought.  Here  we  must  have  recourse  to  the 
Law  of  Excluded  Middle  again.  A  thing  must 
either  be  or  not  be ;  and  if  both  its  being 
and  its  non-being  are  concepts  too  far  beyond 
the  range  of  experience  for  complete  demon- 
stration and  understanding,  it  still  remains 
that  one  or  the  other  must  be  true,  whether 
we  understand  it  or  not.  To  illustrate  this,  it 
is  only  necessary  to  state  some  of  the  Kantian 
Antinomies,  —  that  is,  mutually  contradictory 
theories,  each  one  being  as  incapable  of  demon- 


DOES  GOD  EXIST?  27 

stration  as  the  other,  and  each,  I  would  add,  as 
incapable  of  complete  comprehension.  For  ex- 
ample, either  the  universe  is  limited  in  space 
or  it  is  not.  That  is,  either  beyond  the  far- 
thest fixed  star,  and  as  far  beyond  as  you  like, 
there  is  a  limit  fixed  to  the  bounds  of  the 
universe,  or  there  is  not.  I  cannot  comprehend 
it  as  limited,  for  that  implies  nothingness  be- 
yond the  limits,  and  that  I  cannot  conceive. 
Neither  can  I  conceive  it  as  extending  infi- 
nitely without  limits.  Therefore  both  possi- 
bilities are  inconceivable,  and  yet,  since  a 
thing;  must  either  be  or  not  be,  one  or  the 

O  ' 

other  is  true.  The  same  situation  holds  with 
the  question  of  divisibility  of  matter.  Either 
it  can  be  infinitely  divided  into  smaller  and 
smaller  parts,  or  there  comes  a  point  where  it 
cannot  be  divided  further.  Both  possibilities 
are  inconceivable,  and  yet  one  must  be  the  final 
theoretical  concept  if  we  hold  strictly  to  our 
law. 

In  fact,  without  going  so  far  afield,  there 
are  plenty  of  mathematical  facts,  such  as  the 
fourth  dimension,  square  roots  of  certain  quan- 
tities, etc.,  which  are  valid  enough  truths,  but 
cannot  be  clearly  conceived. 

All  this  shows  that,  logically,  all  thought 


28  THE   RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

must  proceed  on  certain  unproved  and  incon- 
ceivable assumptions,  and  that  the  fact  that 
they  are  unproved  and  inconceivable  argues 
nothing  whatever  as  to  their  truth  or  falsity. 
For  all  relative  matters,  that  is,  for  all  finite 
ideas  that  can  be  grouped  under  a  larger  con- 
cept, we  demand  clear  definition  and  lucid 
comprehension.  In  any  debate,  for  instance, 
the  meaning  of  each  term  must  be  understood 
by  both  sides ;  each  term  must  be  clearly  de- 
fined in  terms  of  something  else.  This  is  one 
of  the  first  rules  of  logic :  "  A  definition  can- 

o 

not  contain  the  name  of  the  word  defined." 
Thus,  the  definition  of  a  pen  as  "an  instru- 
ment for  the  purpose  of  writing,"  or  some 
similar  phrase,  is  valid  logically  ;  but  the  defi- 
nition of  a  pen  as  "  a  pen  for  the  purpose  of 
writing,"  is  no  definition  at  all.  We  can  define 
a  pen  accurately  enough,  for  the  very  reason 
that  it  can  be  grouped  under  the  larger  con- 
cept of  "  instrument,"  "article  of  wood,  metal, 
or  india-rubber,"  or  what  not ;  and  only  be- 
cause of  this  possibility  of  statement  in  terms 
of  something  else,  is  it  a  valid  object  for  log- 
ical definition.  But  when  large  concepts  are 
pushed  further  and  further  back,  we  come 
finally  to  a  point  where  the  idea  or  the  object 


DOES  GOD  EXIST?  29 

does  not  admit  of  statement  in  terms  of  any- 
thing else.  It  is  what  we  call  sui  generis,  and 
such  general  concepts  as  Consciousness,  Mat- 
ter, and  God  belong  to  this  class  of  indefin- 
ables.  We  see  that  they  are  indefinable  solely 
because  there  is  no  higher  class  under  which 

o 

we  may  group  them,  and  we  cannot  express 
their  nature  in  other  than  their  own  terms ; 
but  this  does  not  bear  the  slightest  reference 
to  their  truth  or  validity.  If  we  try  to  define 
what  we  mean  by  human  consciousness,  how 
do  we  succeed?  Consciousness  is  conscious- 
ness ;  it  is  the  sum  of  mental  states ;  it  is  the 
realm  of  mind,  —  and  here  we  are  using  the 
same  undefined  terms  in  every  definition,  and 
making  ourselves  no  clearer  than  before.  Of 
course  the  reason  that  this  does  not  bewilder 
us,  as  do  the  similar  attempts  at  a  definition  of 
Godhead,  is  that  we  feel  we  all  have  an  inti- 
mate firsthand  consciousness  of  what  conscious- 
ness is.  The  very  act  of  doubting  our  mental 
life  or  attempting  to  define  it  is  in  itself  a 
mental  state ;  and  while  the  extraordinary  in- 
conceivability of  our  consciousness  must  have 
struck  every  thinking  person,  —  the  facts  of 
memory,  of  imagination,  the  ceaseless  stream 
of  ideas  that  chase  through  our  minds,  con- 


30  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

nected  with  our  body  and  yet  totally  differ- 
ent in  nature  from  their  physical  substratum, 
—  in  spite  of  all  this,  I  say,  we  do  not  doubt 
the  existence  of  consciousness,  because  we 
have  it.  If  a  logical  definition  of  it  were  pos- 
sible (but  it  is  not,  by  the  nature  of  the  case), 
the  real  essence  of  mental  states  would  be  no 
more  evident  to  us  than  it  is  already.  All  this 
latter  argument,  as  with  our  first  type  of  ob- 
jector, proves  nothing  whatever  of  a  positive 
nature  about  the  evidence  of  God.  In  both 
cases,  we  have  simply  shown  that  the  argu- 
ments for  God's  non-existence  are  logically 
untenable.  They  have  not  been  the  arguments, 
as  they  supposed,  on  which  the  doubters  base 
their  beliefs  in  other  matters  of  life-experience. 
In  fact,  contrary  to  their  first  conviction,  they 
believe  nothing  so  heartily  as  certain  facts 
which  from  their  nature  can  never  be  experi- 
enced by  sensation,  or  logically  defined.  They 
admit  further  that  sense-experience  and  logi- 
cal definition  are  by  their  very  nature  incapable 
of  giving  proof  either  of  God's  existence  or  of 
the  reverse. 

We  are  now  apparently  in  the  identical 
position  from  which  we  started.  Nothing  is 
proved,  and  we  are  prepared  as  before  to  be- 


DOES  GOD  EXIST?  31 

lieve  one  hypothesis  as  easily  as  the  other. 
Only  two  points  have  been  gained :  we  shall 
not  look  to  the  senses  for  evidence  of  God's 
existence,  and  we  shall  not  look  in  the  field  of 
pure  logic  to  prove  a  proposition  confessedly 
outside  its  realm. 

We  say  we  are  in  our  first  situation,  —  but 
at  first  glance  it  seems  even  worse  !  If  we  have 
put  the  conception  of  God  outside  the  realm 
of  sense  and  logic,  have  we  not  put  it  out  of 
all  possible  range  of  thought  ?  The  most  com- 
plex and  abstract  theories  of  science  must  have 
an  experimental  basis  of  some  kind,  and  if  we 
have  relegated  the  evidence  of  God's  existence 
from  both  science  and  logical  proof,  what  is 
there  left  but  a  realm  of  unreason  where  we 
refuse  to  tread  ? 

I  will  agree  at  once  that  we  have  undoubt- 
edly put  the  question  of  God's  existence  out- 
side the  range  of  any  proof  whatever.  I  will 
not  say  put  it  there,  but  found  it  there,  as 
this  has  been  no  juggling  with  words,  but  the 
simple  discovery  of  an  eternal  fact. 

The  word  "  proof '  belongs  to  science  and 
logic.  It  means,  either  that  enough  data  have 
been  gathered,  with  similar  effects  following 
fixed  precedents,  to  justify  the  scientist  in 


32  THE  RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

assuming  a  quantitative  causal  law  connecting 
them.  This  is  inductive  proof.  Or  it  means 
that,  granted  certain  logical  premises,  certain 
conclusions  must  follow.  This  is  deductive 
proof.  There  are  strictly  none  but  these  two 
kinds.  Unless,  then,  we  can  formulate  our 
subject-matter  so  that  it  falls  into  these  modes 
of  thinking,  it  is  outside  their  range,  and  the 
word  proof  does  not  and  cannot  apply. 

Since  we  have  said  that  the  idea  of  God 
was  too  great  to  be  defined  in  other  terms, 
or  brought  under  logical  premises,  and  sensa- 
tion-evidence there  was  none,  we  are  in  this 
matter  absolutely  shut  out  from  the  close 
circle  of  scientific  thought,  and  must  proceed 
on  a  new  basis. 

Moreover,  instead  of  losing  anything  by  the 
change  of  ground,  we  have  infinitely  gained. 
Since  science  cannot  prove  anything  for  us, 
neither  can  it  disprove,  and  we  no  longer  fear 
it.  We  are  not  afraid  of  any  possible  develop- 
ments of  the  evolutionary  theory.  We  need 
not  fear  any  disclosures  in  chemistry  as  to 
the  spontaneous  generation  of  matter,  any 
researches  in  history  that  inform  us  that  Abra- 
ham was  a  myth,  or  in  geology,  that  the  world- 
formation  is  not  accurately  described  in  Gene- 


DOES   GOD   EXIST?  33 

sis.  We  need  not  worry  if  astronomy  leaves 
no  tract  for  a  material  heaven,  or  if  psycho- 
logy refuses  to  speak  of  souls  and  shakes  its 
head  over  immortality.  As  scientists  we  are 
profoundly  interested  in  what  science  discloses, 
and  look  forward  to  years  of  as  brilliant 
achievement  and  readjustments  of  theory  as 
have  gone  before.  But  as  religious  thinkers 
we  cannot  use  one  of  its  discoveries  to  prove 
our  beliefs,  neither  can  it  use  any  to  disprove 
them.  We  are  free.  We  are  running  on  sep- 
arate tracks  and  cannot  collide,  and  moreover 
we  can  build  up  our  belief  with  no  timid  fears 
that  the  next  scientific  monthly  may  shatter 
the  structure  about  our  ears.  At  first  this  free- 
dom is  not  perhaps  wholly  welcome.  Like  a 
reluctant  swimmer,  who  is  for  the  first  time 
set  free  from  the  trainer's  hand,  we  are  more 
conscious  of  our  lack  of  support  than  of  our 
liberty.  If  we  cannot  depend  on  ordinary 
means  of  conviction,  what  shall  be  our  guide? 
But  here  our  case  is  simpler  than  we  fear.  It 
is  exactly  by  our  ordinary  means  of  conviction 
in  certain  instances,  I  believe,  that  we  must 
become  aware  of  God's  existence;  and  these 
every-day  means  are  not  as  universally  scien- 
tific or  logical  as  we  imagine.  I  do  not  mean 


34  THE  RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

by  this  that  we  are  often  irrational  (although 
this  is  also  true  enough),  but  that  there  are 
many  propositions  which  are  as  incapable  of 
scientific  proof  as  the  one  in  hand ;  we  tacitly 
admit  it.  and  act  toward  them  on  other  grounds 

'  O 

altogether.  These  unprovable  propositions  are, 
moreover,  the  most  important  in  our  whole 
experience. 

Take,  for  example,  the  very  simple  proposi- 
tion that  our  friends  exist,  that  other  person- 
alities are  real,  and  live  a  mental  life  similar 
in  kind  to  our  own .  Can  this  possibly  be  proved  ? 
We  see,  hear,  and  feel  them,  it  is  true, 
but  the  senses  are  very  illusory  after  all,  and 
there  is  no  possible  proof  that  they  report  an 
outward  stimulus,  rather  than  that  they  func- 
tion because  of  a  stimulus  in  our  own  brains. 
When  you  talk  with  a  friend,  psychologically 
speaking,  your  own  speech  answers  your  own 
sound  and  sight  sensations  of  him;  yours  are  the 
motor  impulses,  and  yours  are  the  resulting 
sensations ;  so  that  you  could  just  as  literally 
say  you  are  holding  a  conversation  with  your- 
self. A  certain  brand  of  philosophy  called 
Solipsism  acknowledges  itself  driven  to  this 
point  of  view,  and  says  we  are  all  of  us  in  a 
lonely  world  of  our  own,  peopled  with  our  own 


DOES  GOD  EXIST?  35 

sensations,  which  maybe  nothing  but  hallucina- 
tions, in  the  sense  that  there  is  no  possible  way 
of  proving  that  they  arise  from  any  stimulus 
outside  of  ourselves.  We  call  a  man  insane 
when  he  addresses  presences  whom  the  rest  of 
us  cannot  see ;  but  so  far  as  any  proof  is  con- 
cerned, we  may  be  all  of  us  in  the  same  situation, 
with  the  simple  difference  that  most  of  us  seem 
to  agree  on  certain  hallucinations.  I  cannot 
know,  then,  that  any  but  my  own  consciousness 
exists;  but,  nevertheless,  I  believe  firmly  that 
others  do.  Apparently  my  only  reason  for  this 
is  that  I  prefer  to  do  so !  Since  I  cannot  prove 
either  one  or  the  other,  I  choose  the  possibil- 
ity that  gives  a  richer,  more  significant  life. 
I  do  not  want  to  be  the  only  creature  in  the 
universe,  —  I  can  remember  the  horror  of  this 
possibility  as  it  came  over  me  sometimes  in 
childhood;  and  though  one  might  say,  so  long 
as  these  apparent  existences  are  amusing  and 
satisfactory  in  themselves,  why  mind  whether 
they  are  separate  personalities  or  tricks  of  your 
own  fancy  ?  still,  we  feel  a  wide  difference,  and 
demand  that  their  existence  shall  be  a  real  one, 
and  separate  from  ours.  If  you  do  not  feel 
this  difference,  if  you  do  not  feel  any  shock  to 
your  life  in  thinking  that  your  friends  are  simply 


36  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

clusters  of  your  own  self-stimulated  sensations, 
you  are  welcome  to  hold  with  the  solipsists 
the  other  view.  You  have  as  good  a  right,  so 
far  as  proof  is  concerned,  and  not  a  whit  better, 
to  believe  your  way  as  mine.  As  for  me,  I  pre- 
fer the  other  road.  Most  of  the  world  prefers  the 
other  road,  too,  and  what  is  more,  it  has  never 
occurred  to  them  that  there  was  any  choice. 
They  have  felt  that  their  friends'  separate  ex- 
istence was  as  assured  a  fact  as  their  own  per- 
sonality, and  that  nothing  could  be  a  truth 
less  in  need  of  proof.  In  one  sense  they  are 
right.  Their  own  existence  and  that  of  others 
are  in  similar  case ;  but  instead  of  both  being 
proved,  both  are  alike  unprovable ! 

If  I  turn  my  gaze  inward  to  my  own  mental 
life,  to  discover  just  what  I  mean  by  "myself  "  at 
all,  I  shall  find  a  tide  of  thoughts  and  sensa- 
tions flowing  after  one  another  in  a  ceaseless 
stream.  At  present,  there  is  the  fixed  attention 
on  what  I  am  writing,  the  sound  of  rain,  the 
feeling  of  warmth,  the  odor  of  varnish,  and 
many  other  concomitant  sensations ;  but  where 
in  the  meantime  am  I?  These  thoughts  and 

o 

sensations  chase  themselves  along,  sometimes 
under  control  of  attention  and  sometimes  not; 
and  even  if  I  call  my  attention  the  real 


DOES   GOD   EXIST?  37 

"  I,"  it  apparently  bears  no  special  relation  to 
what  I  was  attending  to  yesterday.  It  seems 
in  any  case  to  go  on  in  a  certain  sense  of  it- 
self —  now  shifting,  now  refusing  to  grasp 
anything,  and  now  spurting  off  again.  In  vain 
do  I  try  to  separate  myself  from  this  torrent 
of  ideas.  If  I  call  the  whole  conglomerate  of 
my  conscious  states  me,  then  I  am  never  the 
same  person  two  minutes  in  succession ;  if  I  call 
my  memories  me,  then  I  am  losing  parts  of  my- 
self every  instant ;  my  attention  is  not  myself, 
for  it  will  not  be  controlled ;  and  certainly  my 
desire  to  control  it  cannot  be  the  real  I,  as 
that  implies  that  I  am  possessed  by  a  mental 
factor  stronger  than  myself,  and  that  I  do  not 
myself  know  what  I  am  attending  to,  but  only 
that  I  want  to  attend.  I  do  not  know  what  or 
where  the  real  I  is  situated  in  me,  or  in  fact  if 
there  is  one  part  of  my  consciousness  more  my- 
self than  another. 

Why,  then,  do  I  believe  that  there  is  an  I 
which  stands  for  a  more  fixed  soul  in  myself 
than  I  am  able  at  any  time  to  designate?  Is 
anything  in  fact  more  impossible  to  prove  than 
this?  Are  we  not  driven  with  the  material- 
ists to  say,  "There  is  no  Self.  There  is  simply 
a  tide  of  ideas  aroused  by  fixed  associational 


38  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

and  sensational  laws,  which  flow  on  as  rest- 
lessly and  uncontrollably  as  a  mountain  brook. 
You  do  not  govern  your  ideas,  or  exist  as  a 
Soul  apart  from  them,  and  your  being  as  a  real 
ego  is  pure  fiction. '  We  are  not  driven  to 
this  position,  because  the  materialist  is  in  like 
evil  case  with  us.  He  cannot  prove  that  an  ego 
does  not  exist,  that  certain  phases  of  conscious- 
ness are  not  more  significant  and  rightfully 
called  Soul  than  others,  and  we  cannot  prove 
the  reverse.  What,  then,  are  we  to  do?  We 
must  choose  the  alternative  that  suits  better 
with  the  rest  of  our  thinking.  He  may  keep 
his  point  of  view,  if  he  is  so  enamored  of  his 
habit  of  classifying  organisms  in  the  lower 
world  that,  for  the  sake  of  consistency,  he  would 
prefer  to  class  himself  with  them  and  sacrifice 
the  possibility  of  having  a  soul.  That  is,  he 
would  rather  run  the  chance  in  that  direction 
in  the  mean  time,  and  keep  his  world-classifica- 
tions neat  and  simple.  We,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  rather  take  our  chances  the  other  way, 
and,  at  the  expense  of  a  uniform  classifica- 
tion, say  that  perhaps  man  is  an  exception  to 
the  lower  organisms,  and  that  in  spite  of  the 
inconsequent  stream  of  ideas  which  make  up 
the  only  ego  he  can  discover,  since  he  has  gone 


DOES   GOD   EXIST?  39 

beyond  the  animals  in  thinking  he  has  a  self, 
he  may  have  gone  beyond  them  and  have  one 
(always  providing  they  are  without  souls,  which 
we  can  also  never  prove). 

Indeed,  our  doubter  will  have  no  more  dif- 
ficult task  than  the  one  of  proving  that  he  has 
or  is  a  personality  in  any  more  real  sense  than 
is  any  of  the  lower  animals ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  materialists  cannot  disprove  the  wide- 
spread conviction  that  man's  higher  activities 
of  mind  are  expressions  of  a  self  that  exists 
parallel  with  but  apart  from  his  animal  nature. 
The  two  alternatives  are  of  their  nature  out- 
side the  region  of  proof.  The  most  naive  be- 
liever in  his  soul  would  hardly  assign  it  a 
definite  position  in  space,  either  inside  or  out- 
side of  his  body;  and  if  he  refuses  to  place  it, 
how  can  it  be  located,  either  to  be  trium- 
phantly exploited  by  himself,  or  hunted  for 
and  found  absent  by  his  opponent? 

The  situation  is  this.  We  find  a  difference 
in  quality  between  our  ideas  and  certain 
thoughts  and  actions  that  we  call  more  signi- 
ficant, more  profound,  more  far-reaching  than 
others ;  and  we  say,  "  I  will  call  these  my  soul." 
The  materialist  observes  these  same  differences, 
and  says,  "  I  will  not  call  these  or  any  other 


40  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

ideas  my  soul."  Both  of  us  are  arbitrary,  and 
doing  equally  what  we  choose.  Whether  we 
choose  one  way  or  the  other  depends  largely 
on  our  temperament,  that  is,  on  whether  the 
notion  of  being  real  personalities  is  very  dear 
to  us  or  not.  We  may  have  the  desire  to  sim- 
plify the  world  at  any  cost,  and  make  our  point 
of  view  toward  man's  mentality  coincide  with 
that  for  other  organisms.  If  we  are  of  this 
mind,  and  the  desire  for  personality  is  not  a 
strong  demand,  we  are  cheerful  materialists. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  our  temperament  clashes 
with  our  habits  of  scientific  classification,  we 
are  melancholy  materialists,  or  timid  spiritual- 
ists, as  the  case  may  be.  The  rational  course 
is  to  choose  the  richer  alternative  with  our 
eyes  open,  and  take  the  view  which  gives  the 
widest  possibility  with  the  least  sacrifice.  In 
giving  up  materialism  we  sacrifice  only  a  sim- 
plicity of  outlook  (which  is  indeed  restful  for 
the  mind  at  times);  but  because  so  much  simpler 
than  the  phenomena  with  which  it  deals,  it  is 
perhaps  somewhat  suspicious.  By  adopting  the 
other  view  we  gain  a  real  dignity  in  human 
achievement,  a  meaning  to  right  and  wrong, 
and  an  incentive  to  duty,  and  we  sacrifice  no- 
thing, but  only  complicate  our  scientific  theory. 


DOES   GOD   EXIST?  41 

Why,  then,  should  we  not  be  as  free  and 
happy  as  possible  ?  We  have  at  least  half  a 
chance  of  being  right.  The  vigor  of  our  ac- 
ceptance of  either  theory  will  be  proportionate, 
not  to  any  force  of  logical  conviction,  of  which 
there  can  be  none,  but  to  the  force  of  our 
desire  for  the  possibility  ive  have  chosen. 
If  we  must  have  one  alternative  or  the  other 
to  fit  in  with  our  other  ideals,  our  acceptance 
will  be  a  passionate  one ;  if  we  are  indifferent 
to  the  outcome,  our  adherence  will  be  luke- 
warm and  will  depend  largely  on  the  atmos- 
phere we  are  in  at  any  given  discussion  of  the 
matter. 

It  is  plain  now  where  we  are  being  led  by 
our  argument.  Our  acceptance  of  God's  ex- 
istence depends,  as  does  the  belief  in  the  real 
personalities  of  others  and  of  our  self,  on  our 
desire  to  so  believe  where  proof  is  impossible. 
If  it  were  only  a  case  of  debate,  we  could  call 
it  "  adoption,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  of  an 
unproved  premise."  That  is,  while  the  argu- 
ment was  in  progress,  we  would  agree  to  act 
as  if  the  premise  were  true.  But  there  is  more 
than  an  argument  in  question  here.  On  our 
decision  depends  the  course  of  our  whole  life ; 
so,  in  the  phraseology  of  Kant,  our  Practical 


42  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

Reason  must  function  in  a  region  where  Pure 
Reason  ceases  to  have  a  place,  or  in  the  lan- 
guage of  religion  we  must  live  by  faith. 

In  any  case  we  must  live  by  faith  —  there 
is  no  avoiding  it.  We  live  either  by  a  faith 
that  God  does  exist,  or  by  an  equally  unproved 
faith  that  He  does  not ;  but  live  by  one  faith 
or  the  other,  we  must. 

"  Now  faith  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped 
for,  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen,"  and  the 
crux  of  the  whole  situation  is,  "  What  do  we 
hope  for  ? '  We  can  hope  for  the  existence  of 
a  God,  and  thereby  act  as  members  of  a  uni- 
verse created  by  Him,  or  we  can  hope  for  a 
world  without  Him,  and  live  as  if  not  respon- 
sible to  Him.  It  is  because  of  these  two  alter- 
natives, I  believe,  that  Paul  in  his  famous 
chapter  on  love  —  ardent  advocate  of  faith  as 
he  was  —  puts  love  above  it,  and  above  hope, 
as  the  primal  necessity  of  life.  Unless  we  have 
a  real  and  vigorous  longing  for  a  God,  a  love 
for  the  idea  of  His  existence,  we  shall  not  hope 
for  Him,  and  unless  we  hope  for  Him  there 
is  no  reason  why  we  should  believe  in  Him. 
We  should  otherwise  naturally  hope  for  an 
easy  Godless  world  that  makes  no  demands  on 
us,  and  as  naturally  believe  in  one. 


DOES   GOD  EXIST?  43 

Then  the  important  question  for  every 
doubter  to  ask  himself  is,  "  Do  I  really  want 
a  God  ? '  If  he  honestly  wants  one,  he  may 
proceed  with  us  to  expound  the  character  of 
the  kind  of  God  he  wants,  and  to  ask  what 
kind  of  evidence  of  his  existence  he  wants  — 
since  he  does  not  want  the  evidence  he  de- 
manded at  first.  If  he  honestly  does  not  want 
a  God,  he  need  go  with  us  no  further,  as  he 
is  not  of  our  audience. 

There  is  a  curious  tendency  in  one  conscien- 
tious type  of  disbeliever  to  feel,  that  in  this 
situation,  where  the  choice  lies  between  two 
faiths,  it  is  more  honest,  more  praiseworthy, 
to  choose  the  thing  feared,  than  to  choose  the 
thing  hoped  for.  The  doubter  hopes  for  a 
God,  but  fears  the  other  possibility,  and  con- 
siders it  a  taunt  if  accused  of  believing  in  a 
God  simply  because  he  wants  to.  What  better 
reason  could  there  be  ?  Surely  nothing  could 
be  more  uncalled  for  than  to  believe  the  op- 
posite unproved  proposition,  because  he  did 
not  want  to  !  I  hope  I  have  indicated  clearly 
enough  that  no  scientific  discovery  could  pos- 
sibly force  him  to  choose  the  undesirable  faith, 
and  that  if  he  thinks  in  so  doing-  he  is  more 

o 

scientific  than  in  following  his  inclinations, 


44  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

he  is  mistaken.  Pie  is  like  a  man  so  firmly  de- 
termined to  stand  straight  that  he  falls  over 

o 

backward. 

Is  there  then  no  possible  factor  outside  of 
our  hope  that  can  indicate  the  road  we  are  to 
travel  ?  Do  the  balances  hang  absolutely  even 
between  belief  in  God  and  belief  in  His  non- 
existence,  with  nothing  but  the  added  weight 
of  desire  on  one  side? 

Evidence  of  certain  kinds  we  can  find  in 
both  directions,  but  it  must  be  judged  as  we 
judge  evidence  in  other  questions  of  the  same 
character.  We  must  take  into  consideration 
the  reliability  of  the  witnesses,  and  consider 
whether  the  intrinsic  worth  of  few  witnesses 
is  of  greater  or  less  value  than  numbers  of 
lesser  ones.  That  is,  we  must  decide  whether 
quantitative  or  qualitative  evidence  is  what  we 
are  after. 

In  psychology  there  are  no  values  put  on 
different  mental  states.  Psychology,  like  any 
science,  must  look  upon  its  facts  with  an  im- 
partial eye,  and  a  sensation  of  a  sweet  taste 
or  the  resolve  to  die  for  one's  country  must  be 
analyzed  with  equal  scrutiny.  Although  one  is 
more  complicated  than  the  other,  they  are 
both  mere  phenomena  to  be  observed  with 


DOES   GOD  EXIST?  45 

equal  interest  and  attention.  From  this  point 
of  view,  the  prevalent  idea  that  each  human 
mind  is  a  responsible  being,  and  not  a  mere 
reflex  mechanism  like  the  lower  animals,  is 
only  another  idea  along  with  the  rest,  to  be 
noticed  with  interest  as  a  mental  character- 
istic of  man,  but  it  carries  scientifically  no 
weight  whatever.  That  is,  as  a  psychologist, 
a  man  refuses  to  be  interested  in  the  ultimate 
truth  of  this  conviction  of  moral  responsibility, 
but  interests  himself  in  it  simply  as  a  convic- 
tion, along  with  many  others. 

So  the  botanist,  as  a  botanist,  is  not  con- 
cerned with  whether  a  rose  is  more  beautiful 
than  a  weed.  As  an  artist,  he  may  have  his 
convictions  about  it,  but  for  the  time  being, 
all  floral  growth  is  his  field,  beautiful  or  ugly, 
and  he  refuses  to  enter  into  a  discussion  as  to 
the  relative  beauty  of  his  specimens.  It  does 
not  interest  him. 

But  this  difference  between  mental  states 
does  interest  us.  This,  for  the  time,  is  just  our 
field,  and  we  choose  to  call  some  ideas  more 
significant  than  others,  and  some  men  more 
valuable  witnesses  than  others,  because  they 
share  more  largely  in  these  ideas. 

If  we  try  to  define  what  we  call  ourself,  in 


46  THE   RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

each  case  we  shall  doubtless  specify  certain 
factors  in  our  mental  make-up  which  we  con- 
sider more  significant.  We  perform  more  ha- 
bitual automatic  acts  than  we  make  great 
decisions,  the  proportion  is  in  point  of  quan- 
tity overwhelmingly  in  their  favor,  and  yet 
we  feel  ourselves  as  personalities  in  the  latter 
situations,  however  few  they  may  be,  much 
more  than  in  the  former.  Nathan  Hale,  for 
instance,  had  lived  twenty  years  or  so  of  eat- 
ing and  drinking,  walking,  breathing,  and  con- 
versation. He  died  once  for  his  country,  and 
yet  that  one  experience,  that  one  choice,  seems 
to  us  all,  and  undoubtedly  seemed  to  him, 
more  like  himself  speaking,  like  his  real  ego 
experiencing  itself,  than  did  the  thousand  and 
one  lesser  matters  of  his  life. 

Now  it  is  undeniably  true  that,  just  as 
there  is  a  widespread  conviction  that  the  hu- 
man race  has  a  life  of  real  moral  responsibil- 
ity, that  is,  is  a  race  of  personalities  and  not 
mechanisms,  so  there  is  and  has  been  for  many 
centuries  a  conviction  that  there  is  a  God. 
Moreover,  it  is  true  that  the  periods  in  which 
men  have  become  most  certain  of  their  own 
personalities  as  moral  and  responsible  beings, 
in  which  they  have  viewed  their  fellow  men 


DOES   GOD  EXIST?  47 

most  as  persons  and  not  as  things  —  these 
have  been  the  times  when  God's  existence  has 
seemed  most  probable.  I  use  the  terms  man  as 
a  personality  and  man  as  a  moral  being  inter- 
changeably, because  the  two  imply  each  other. 
I£  I  am  not  a  person,  I  am  not  responsible  for 
what  I  do  ;  if  I  am  a  person,  I  can  be  called  to 
account  for  my  actions.  It  is  the  moral  world 
which  drives  home  the  question  whether  we 
are  persons  or  not.  When  we  are  at  work, 
taking  physical  exercise,  or  engaged  in  esthetic 
enjoyment,  the  question  of  personality  does 
not  arise,  and  if  no  moral  questions  had  crossed 
our  path,  it  might  never  have  arisen.  But 
when  confronted  with  a  duty,  the  whole  course 
of  activity  depends  on  the  question,  "  Am  I  a 
responsible  being  or  am  I  not  ? '  and  then  we 
are  driven  back  to  ask  ourself  (if  we  have  a 
self)  the  question. 

In  point  of  numbers,  then,  our  innumerable 
actions  of  a  reflex  and  mechanical  order  seem 
to  ally  us  with  the  lower  orders  of  beings,  and 
make  us  non-personal,  natural  automatons.  In 
point  of  significance,  however,  our  moments 
of  choice  between  important  alternatives,  our 
moments  of  self-sacrifice,  or  of  creative  thought, 
seem,  in  spite  of  their  scarcity,  to  indicate  the 


48  THE  RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

existence  of  a  real  self,  which,  dormant  though 
it  may  often  be,  occasionally  rouses  itself  to 
action,  and  we  choose  to  call  those  actions 
more  truly  ours  than  the  more  frequent  and 
trivial  ones.  We  judge  our  friends'  personal- 
ities on  the  same  basis,  and  «onsider  certain 
traits  more  important,  more  their  real  self, 
than  others. 

Now  why  do  we  not  apply  the  same  princi- 
ples naturally  and  without  hesitation  to  the  be- 
lief in  God's  existence  ?  The  world  has  always 
had  the  idea  of  a  God,  and  believed  in  Him 
with  more  or  less  intensity.  We  cannot  prove 
that  such  a  universal  conviction  points  to  an 
external  existence,  any  more  than  that  our  sen- 
sations do  the  same.  But  if  we  can  make  any 
distinction  between  the  value  of  our  different 
mental  states,  the  moments  when  we  feel  most 
convinced  of  God's  existence  seem  always  of  a 
higher  order  than  those  when  we  deny  Him ; 
and  if  we  want  Him  sufficiently,  it  will  no 
more  occur  to  us  to  refuse  to  communicate 
with  Him  on  an  unproved  probability,  than  to 
cut  off  intercourse  with  human  beings  because 
it  is  unproved  that  they  exist. 

The  most  ardent  solipsist  states  his  views  to 
the  audience  whose  existence  he  calls  in  ques- 


DOES   GOD   EXIST?  49 

tion,  and  if  the  doubter  in  a  similar  manner 
kept  up  a  continual  communication  with  a  God 
whose  existence  he  half  believed,  the  practical 
situation  would  be  the  normal,  natural  one.  The 
philosopher  may  ask  with  good  reason,  "  Do 
these  sense-stimulations  indicate  an  external 
reality,  or  am  I  alone  in  my  world  of  self -stimu- 
lated ideas  ? '  But  in  the  mean  time,  until  he 
settles  the  matter,  or  indeed  no  matter  how  he 
settles  it,  he  does  talk  to  his  friends,  he  acts 
as  a  good  parent  and  citizen,  and  his  friends 
look  upon  his  doubts  with  a  cheerful  indiffer- 
ence. They  do  not  care  what  he  thinks,  so  long 
as  he  acts  as  if  he  thought  they  and  he  were 
human  beings  in  the  same  world. 

Let  it  not  be  understood  that  we  are  putting 
the  slightest  undervaluation  on  the  necessity 
of  rigidly  scientific  thought.  We  simply  insist 
that  where  logic  and  science  cannot  touch  the 
problem,  we  can  only  call  the  man  sane  who 
acts  on  the  richer  possibility. 

If  our  solipsist  acted  on  his  fears  instead  of 
his  hopes,  if  he  ignored  his  fellow  beings  be- 
cause he  was  not  convinced  that  they  existed 
outside  of  his  imagination,  we  should  call  him 
eccentric,  not  to  say  mad.  Or  if  a  scientist 
doubted  his  own  personality,  and,  giving  up 


50  THE  RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

what  he  considered  a  meaningless  struggle  to- 
ward certain  ends,  relapsed  to  a  natural  ani- 
rnal  life,  it  would  be  necessary  to  shut  him  up. 
His  neighbor  would  have  the  right  to  say, 
"  Doubt  what  you  like,  but  you  must  act  as  if 
you  were  a  person  and  as  if  I  were." 

Now  our  doubters  are  in  the  situation  of 
men  who,  having  a  defensible  doubt,  act  on  the 
lesser  possibility,  when  it  is  a  question  of  God's 
existence,  while  they  very  rationally  act  on 
the  larger  chance  toward  themselves  and  their 
friends.  On  the  arising  of  doubt  (and  doubt 
is  a  healthy  period  of  mental  development) 
they  cut  off  communication  with  God,  if  they 
ever  had  any,  and  the  longer  they  are  out  of 
connection  the  more  unreal  He  becomes.  They 
commit  themselves  without  reserve  to  the  other 
point  of  view,  forgetting  that  it  is  equally  un- 
founded. 

Suppose  I  follow  a  similar  method  with  my 
friends.  I  begin  by  refusing  to  speak;  I  pass 
them  without  recognition.  Every  argument 
that  might  point  to  their  reality  I  label  as  un- 
sound, because  it  is  prompted  mainly  by  my 
hope  and  desire  to  escape  from  loneliness. 
What  would  be  the  result  of  this?  Would  it 
take  many  weeks  for  the  conviction  to  deepen 


DOES  GOD  EXIST?  51 

that  they  were  actually  unreal,  for  their  voices 
to  come  like  meaningless  dreams  which  I  would 

o 

never  answer  ?  They  in  turn  would  leave  me 
more  or  less  sadly  alone,  and  not  trouble  the 
solitude  with  which  I  had  chosen  to  surround 
myself.  What  I  saw  of  them  would  pass  like  a 
panorama  before  my  eye,  hardly  distinguished 
from  my  imagination,  which  would  have  been 
growing  more  and  more  vivid,  thrown  back,  as 
it  were,  upon  itself.  This  would  be  a  kind  of 
anti-social  mania,  thoroughly  unhealthy  and 
untenable,  and  yet  just  as  well  founded  on  logic 
as  the  normal  human  attitude,  and  the  exact 
situation  in  which  the  doubter  of  God's  reality 
finds  himself. 

The  best  men  throughout  the  ages  have 
been  convinced  that  there  was  a  God,  or  have 
been  profoundly  unhappy  because  they  were 
not  so  convinced.  The  best  moments  of  our 
life  are  when  we  consider  His  existence  the 
most  probable,  and  we  have  the  witness  of  the 
higfh  moments  of  others  as  well  as  of  ourselves. 

o 

We  have  the  testimony  of  many  men,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  they  have  had  no  such  God- 
experience,  and  we  have  had  our  own  moments 
of  certainty  that  God  is  an  impossible  concep- 
tion. In  numbers  it  may  be  that  the  latter 


52  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

moments  have  been  most  frequent ;  in  quality, 
which  are  of  the  higher  order?  In  quality,  tak- 
ing the  broadest  view  possible,  which  has  been 
the  higher  type  of  man?  There  have  been 
many  noble  men  who  disbelieved  in  God,  but 
they  seldom  recommended  their  position  or 
sought  to  make  converts.  Their  own  attitude 
to  their  convictions  is  a  sufficient  criticism. 
Further,  on  general  principles  a  positive  witness 
is  worth  more  than  a  negative.  If  a  sufficient 
number  of  healthy  normal  men  assert,  "  I  have 
seen,"  "  I  have  felt,"  their  evidence  is  worth 
more  than  that  of  the  same  number  of  normal, 
but  withal  dissatisfied  men  who  say,  "  I  have 
not  felt,"  "  I  do  not  know." 

If  one  says,  "  I  am  convinced  that  God  ex- 
ists ;  I  speak  with  Him  daily ;  certain  states  of 
mind  seem  like  responses  from  another  person- 
ality, and  not  like  my  own  untouched  conscious- 
ness," who  can  contradict  him,  provided  his 
normality  in  other  directions  gives  him  a  right 
to  be  an  accredited  witness  to  anything?  If 
another  man  says,  "I  do  not  have  any  belief 
in  God's  existence,  I  never  speak  with  Him, 
or  He  to  me,"  it  is  a  confession  that  he  has 
put  himself  out  of  the  range  of  a  God-influ- 
ence as  much  as  possible.  He  could  not  be  ex- 


DOES   GOD  EXIST?  53 

pected  to  know  it  i£  there  were  a  God,  any 
more  than  he  would  have  an  acquaintance 
with  any  one  whose  existence  he  did  his  best 
to  ignore. 

Are  we,  then,  to  open  the  door  wide  to  any 
beliefs  that  the  world  wants?  Are  supersti- 
tions and  fancies,  ghosts  and  goblins,  to  be 
admitted  to  supply  chance  demands,  since  no 
one  can  touch  them  with  proofs  ?  If  a  child 
has  convinced  herself  by  constant  conversation 
with  her  doll  that  it  has  a  soul,  is  she  justified 
in  her  standpoint? 

We  must  of  course  use  common  sense,  but 
the  danger  is  not  half  so  great  of  our  being 
foolish,  as  of  our  being  timid.  Why  not  say 
unhesitatingly,  "  Of  any  two  unprovable  alter- 
natives in  regard  to  the  existence  or  nature  of 
a  possible  fact,  that  alternative  is  most  ration- 
ally believed  which  satisfies  the  highest  demand 
of  the  highest  type  of  normal  human  beings ; 
and,  being  accepted,  only  that  life  is  rational 
which  lives  absolutely  as  if  that  alternative 
were  true"?  We  need  not  be  afraid  of  the 
demands  of  the  human  race.  As  a  whole  they 
do  not  want  to  believe  in  hobgoblins,  and 
never  will.  There  have  been  higher  orders 
of  mind  in  every  generation,  who  demanded, 


54  THE   RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

and  taught  others  to  demand,  the  same  type 
of  God  we  want  to-day.  We  need  not  fear  that 
we  shall  be  forced  by  numbers  to  an  irrational 
contradictory  belief.  There  have  always  been 
seven  thousand  who  have  preferred  not  to  bow 
the  knee  to  Baal,  and  there  is  a  certain  amount 
of  conceit  in  the  scientific  mind  which  is  afraid 
to  commit  itself  to  any  belief  that  exemplifies 
a  world-hope.  Man  as  a  whole  is  to  be  trusted. 
As  a  trained  mind,  he  goes  as  far  as  science 
will  take  him ;  then  he  chafes  at  the  limits  of 
a  scientific  habit  of  thought  that  confesses  it- 
self unable  to  decide  ultimate  alternatives. 
One  or  the  other  ultimate  is  true.  Can  he  not 
trust  his  hopes  ?  What  better  reason  has  he 
to  trust  his  fears  ?  If  a  man  is  just,  can  he  not 
be  trusted  to  live  by  his  larger  faith,  and  not 
by  a  foolish  or  fragmentary  one  ?  If  the  body 
of  just  men  as  a  whole  has  united  in  one 
great  hope,  that  of  itself  puts  it  beyond  the 
ranore  of  the  foolish  or  the  irrational.  The 

o 

world  as  a  whole  knows  what  it  wants. 


Ill 

THE  NATURE  OF  GOD  AND  OF  MAN 

So  far  we  have  been  discussing  the  question 
of  God's  existence,  without  once  asking  the 
very  natural  questions,  "  What  do  we  mean  by 
God?  What  means  have  we  of  knowing  what 
kind  of  a  personality  He  is,  granting  that  He 
exists  at  all  ? ' 

At  least  we  have  got  started  on  our  road, 
if  we  remember  the  conclusion  of  the  last  dis- 
cussion, namely,  that  we  have  a  right  —  other 
things  being  equal  —  to  believe  what  we  hope. 
We  must  begin,  then,  by  carefully  deciding 
what  we  hope,  -  —  that  idea  must  be  very  clear, 
before  we  can  go  further,  —  and  then  we  will 
decide  whether  other  things  are  equal.  Do  we 
have  at  least  enough  of  possible  evidence  on 
our  side  to  justify  our  indulging  in  a  hearty 
and  satisfying  belief  in  what  we  wish  should 
be  true? 

In  a  certain  sense  all  of  us  do  know  what 
we  mean  by  God.  We  know  well  enough  what 
we  have  meant  by  the  word,  to  make  the  dis- 


56  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

cussion  possible  up  to  this  point  without  any 
further  definition.  But  now  we  must  become 
more  explicit.  Our  third  type  of  objector,  the 
man  who  desired  a  good  God,  but  was  unable 
to  believe  in  Him  because  of  a  bad  world,  has 
received  but  little  attention  so  far,  because  his 
doubts  were  founded  more  on  God's  nature 
than  on  His  existence.  Was  he  right?  Are 
we  forced  to  believe  in  a  bad  God  if  any,  or 
is  that  a  contradiction  ?  And  what  shall  be 
our  basis  of  decision:  the  outside  world,  or 
our  own  minds ;  the  good  in  the  world,  or  its 
evil  ?  Is  there  any  conception  large  enough  to 
include  them  all? 

We  will  begin,  however,  in  the  simplest 
possible  way.  Whether  we  can  have  it  or  not, 
whether  the  evidence  is  for  or  against,  we  will 
ask,  "What  do  we  want?'  That  seemed  a 
reliable  guide  in  the  previous  discussion,  and 
perhaps  it  will  be  so  again.  The  attributes 
that  the  world  has  apparently  wanted  to  ascribe 
to  its  God  have  been  power,  grandeur,  and  an 
interest  in  man  and  his  affairs,  which  implies 
a  consciousness  of  a  somewhat  similar  nature 
to  man's,  although  of  a  higher  order.  This 
higher  order  consists  in  a  wider  span  of  know- 
ledge than  is  given  to  the  human  mind,  and  a 


THE   NATURE   OF   GOD  AND   OF   MAN  57 

supreme  capacity  for  bringing  about  its  own 
wide-reaching  plans.  I  suppose  all  religions 
have  agreed  on  so  much  in  the  nature  of  God, 
whether  they  called  Him  an  evil  spirit  or  a 
good  one,  whether  they  considered  that  His 
interest  in  man  consisted  merely  of  vengeance 
on  His  actions,  or  of  sympathy  with  His  con- 
cerns. But  if  we  are  to  make  any  distinctions 
between  our  witnesses,  certainly  the  higher 
orders  of  men  and  of  religions  have  given  fur- 
ther attributes  to  God's  nature.  He  was  not 
only  a  majestic  and  powerful  person,  but  His 
interest  in  man  was  of  a  noble  character.  It 
consisted  not  only  of  an  abstract  observation 
of  the  creatures  He  had  made,  but  of  a  devo- 
tion to  them  as  much  greater  than  human  love 
as  God  was  greater  than  man  in  other  respects. 
They  have  given  no  spatial  character  to  God's 
person.  One  cannot  say  that  He  is  here  or 
there,  that  He  has  a  body  like  ours,  or  indeed 
has  any  material  dimensions  whatever.  But 
just  as  we  have  accepted  the  mystery  of  our 
own  personality,  and,  while  vaguely  calling  it 
connected  somehow  with  our  body,  can  find 
no  resting-place  for  a  soul  from  our  heads  to 
our  feet,  so  they  have  accepted  the  difficult 
concept  of  a  spirit  without  a  body,  as  being 


58  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

at  least  no  harder  to  conceive  than  a  spirit 
with  a  body,  and  they  have  called  God  such 
a  person.  This  conception  of  God  has  always 
aroused  certain  criticisms.  In  the  old  Greek 
philosophy,  Xenophanes  remarked,  "  So  would 
an  ox  conceive  of  God  as  a  greater  ox,  and  a 
lion  conceive  of  him  as  a  greater  lion  " ;  and 
such  critics  call  this  idea  of  God  anthropo- 
morphic, that  is,  just  an  inflation  of  man's 
character  to  as  large  a  size  as  possible,  and 
then  a  naming  of  the  result,  God. 

It  never  pays,  however,  to  be  fearful.  If 
this  is  actually  the  best  thing  we  can  do,  if 
only  by  personifying  the  noblest  characteris- 
tics that  we  know  anything  about  (namely,  the 
most  highly  developed  mental,  moral,  and  spir- 
itual life  of  man),  can  we  get  any  clear  idea  of 
a  Deity,  then  we  must  not  be  afraid  of  being 
called  anthropomorphic,  or  of  being  labeled 
in  any  other  possible  fashion. 

Suppose  we  try  to  do  anything  else.  If  we 
say,  "  God  is  too  great  to  be  like  man  in  any 
respect.  Personality  means  limitation,  which 
He  cannot  have;  He  cannot  have  what  we 
call  knowledge,  for  that  is  made  up  of  ideas 
and  sensations  dependent  on  brain  states,  which 
He  does  not  possess;  He  cannot  have  emo- 


THE  NATURE   OF   GOD  AND   OF   MAN   59 

tions,  for  they  are  bodily  affairs  as  well;  He 
cannot  bring1  certain  effects  about,  for  cause 

O  7 

and  effect  are  separated  by  time,  but  God 
lives  in  a  timeless  universe  where  these  have 
no  meaning."  In  our  anxiety  to  do  the  con- 
cept of  God  full  justice,  therefore,  we  formu- 
late a  series  of  attributes  more  and  more  ab- 
stract and  shadowy,  until  it  is  equivalent  to 
saying,  "  God's  nature  must  be  such  that  man 
cannot  really  form  the  remotest  conception  of 
what  He  is  like";  and  we  fall  into  a  pitfall 
much  more  dangerous  than  anthropomorphism, 
for  it  seems  to  remove  God  absolutely  out  of 
reach. 

That  there  is  a  certain  justification  for  such 
a  process  of  skeptical  criticism,  we  must  admit. 
Certainly  in  our  experience  of  men,  sensations, 
emotions,  reasoning,  and  all  the  rest  of  our 
mental  or  spiritual  life  are  apparently  always 
in  connection  with  brain  states,  and  personal- 
ity gains  its  significant  quality  always  by  cer- 
tain limitations.  I  mean  by  this,  that  you  are 
you  because  you  are  certain  things,  and  are 
not  certain  others.  You  have  a  sense  of  hu- 
mor, you  are  musical,  you  do  not  enjoy  danc- 
ing, you  do  not  like  chemistry,  you  have  blue 
eyes,  you  are  not  six  feet  tall,  you  are  an 


60  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

American,  you  are  not  a  Swede.  Thus  the 
sum  total  of  the  things  you  are  not,  do  not, 
and  have  not,  as  well  as  what  you  are,  do,  and 
have,  makes  up  what  we  call  you,  and  is  your 
personality  for  the  rest  of  society.  Supposing 
now  that  you  had  no  limitations,  that  you 
were  all  things,  knew  all  things,  were  beyond 
all  limits  of  bodily  shape,  or  of  nervous  mani- 
festations, in  sensation,  emotion,  will,  — would 
there  then  be  any  personality  whatever  ?  More- 
over, since  our  whole  mental  life  depends  so 
absolutely  on  brain  and  nervous  states,  how 
can  any  consciousness  in  any  way  akin  to  our 
own  be  conceivable  without  a  kindred  body  ? 
As  to  the  latter  consideration,  which  we  see  is 
the  same  as  the  question,  "Can  we  ourselves 
be  immortal  ? '  the  state  of  the  case  is  this  : 
it  is  true  that  mental  life  and  bodily  existence 
appear  always  together  in  our  experience,  but 
it  is  also  true  that  the  link  between  the  mind 
and  the  body  is  exactly  as  much  of  a  mystery 
as  the  possibility  of  a  mind's  existence  with- 
out a  body. 

I  hope  it  will  not  seem  as  if  we  were  sys- 
tematically trying  to  befuddle  ourselves,  and 
make  puzzles  and  problems  out  of  what  had 
before  seemed  simple  matters  enough.  Our 


THE   NATURE   OF   GOD  AND   OF  MAN  61 

only  insistence  is  upon  an  impartiality  in 
mysteries.  If  we  can  take  the  possibility  of 
God's  consciousness  without  a  body  as  simply 
and  naturally  as  we  accept  our  own  with  one, 
well  and  good.  No  further  discussion  is  neces- 
sary. But  if  we  begin  to  call  one  inconceivable 
and  the  other  easily  understood,  we  are  one- 
sided in  our  view.  From  one  point  of  view, 
both  are  commonplace,  and  from  another  both 
are  profoundly  beyond  comprehension.  It  is  a 
commonplace  that  when  I  look  at  an  English 
violet  I  get  a  purple  light-sensation  and  a  deli- 
cately fragrant  odor.  No  one  would  question 
it,  and  on  the  other  hand  no  one  can  explain 
it.  Let  no  respectful  layman  think  that  a  psy- 
chologist can  explain  it,  for  he  is  absolutely 
unable  so  to  do.  We  can  trace  the  light-waves 
into  the  eye,  we  can  imagine  the  resulting 
chemical  disturbance  in  the  retinal  coat  at  the 
back  of  the  eye,  we  can  fancy  an  observer 
with  the  most  refined  instruments  following 
the  nervous  current  along  the  optic  nerve, 
until  it  makes  connection  with  cells  in  the  vis- 
ual tract  of  the  brain,  and  measuring  the  ner- 
vous discharge  there  and  in  the  smell-region 
of  the  brain,  where  cells  have  been  excited  at 
the  same  time.  All  this  your  psychologist  can 


62  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

conceivably  watch ;  but  could  he  see  the  purple 
sensation  you  have  been  experiencing,  could 
he  smell  the  same  fragrant  odor  that  you  smell 
as  the  cells  in  your  brain  become  active?  He 
most  certainly  could  not.  The  moment  con- 

v""^ 

sciousness  of  sensations  is  aroused  in  you,  you 
have  them  and  you  alone.  You  do  not  have 
the  experience  as  nerve-currents,  or  as  dis- 
charge of  cells  in  your  brain.  Your  experience 
is  purpleness  and  fragrance,  which,  hunt  as 
he  may  in  your  brain,  no  observer  from  the 
outside  can  discover;  and  what  possible  con- 
nection there  is  between  cell-discharge  in  the 

O 

back  of  your  brain  and  color-experience,  cell- 
discharge  at  the  side  of  your  brain  and  odors, 
who  of  us  can  say?  If  we  approached  this 
phenomenon  from  the  outside,  we  should 
doubtless  say,  "Impossible,  inconceivable! 
There  can  be  no  connection  between  sensa- 
tion, emotion,  reasoning,  and  a  pound  or  so 
of  gray  tissue  which  decomposes  and  rebuilds 
again  like  muscles  or  even  vegetables.  It  is 
quite  out  of  the  question  that  the  peculiar 
existences  we  call  ideas  should  be  linked  with 
such  a  disagreeable  mass  of  gray  matter." 
We  seem  forced  to  admit,  nevertheless,  that 
there  is  such  a  connection,  although,  if  one 


THE  NATURE   OF  GOD  AND   OF  MAN   63 

really  faces  the  issue  and  understands  the 
problem,  this  seems  as  incomprehensible  as  is 
a  consciousness  freed  from  connection  with  a 
brain  which  apparently  hinders  it  full  as  much 
as  it  helps  it. 

But  some  one  will  naturally  object  to  this : 
66  Don't  give  us  any  more  mysteries  than  we 
are  obliged  to  have.  We  grant  that  an  em- 
bodied spirit  is  as  difficult  to  explain  as  a  dis- 
embodied one,  but  we  are  forced  to  accept  the 
former.  The  tyranny  of  experience  demands 
that  we  stretch  our  intelligence  to  include  the 

o 

first ;  but  since  we  are  not  obliged  to  include 
the  latter  in  our  science,  let  us  be  thankful 
that  we  have  one  problem  less  to  wrestle  with." 
This  is,  I  think,  the  usual  attitude  of  the 
unbelieving  but  thoughtful  scientific  man.  He 
has  faced  both  problems  squarely  enough  to 
see  that  they  are  equally  difficult;  but  a  cer- 
tain economy  of  attention  leads  him  to  fasten 
on  the  questions  that  he  feels  must  be  answered 
for  a  thorough  scientific  explanation  of  the 
world,  and  he  leaves  the  others  as  not  having 
enough  forced  prominence  in  experience  to  de- 
mand attention  if  he  does  not  choose  to  give 
it.  He  cannot  escape  having  mental  life  with 
certain  features  prominent  in  it,  and  he  can- 


64  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

not  fail  to  notice  that  he  has  a  body.  There- 
fore, the  connection  between  the  two  is  an 
obvious  question,  and  demands  attention.  He 
also  cannot  fail  to  notice  that  a  large  fraction 
of  the  world  has  a  belief  in  a  God,  but  he  does 
not  observe  that  he  has  any  such  belief  him- 
self. Perhaps  he  remembers  that  at  one  time 
he  had  certain  unusual  feelings  that  might  have 
arisen  from  contact  with  a  Divinity  if  there 
were  one,  but  he  does  not  have  them  now, 
neither  does  he  want  them.  He  finds  it  sim- 
pler, in  a  world  with  so  many  questions  wait- 
ing for  solution,  to  sweep  them  all  carefully 
up,  before  allowing  any  more  to  blow  in ;  and 
since  what  experience  he  may  have  had  of  a 
God  does  not  interest  him,  he  shuts  the  doors 
to  any  possible  recurrence  of  it.  In  other 
words,  he  does  not  hope  for  a  God,  therefore 
he  does  not  try  to  put  himself  in  a  position 
for  contact  with  Him.  Since  he  has  no  contact 
with  Him,  naturally  God  plays  no  part  in  his 
experience,  and  naturally  again,  since  this  is 
the  case,  the  problem  of  His  existence  is  more 
easily  set  aside  as  inconceivable,  than  is  the 
problem  of  his  own  mind  and  body,  which  is 
a  part  of  his  experience,  and  for  which,  more- 
over, he  has  a  certain  fondness. 


THE   NATURE   OF   GOD   AND   OF   MAN  65 

If  previously  a  God-experience  had  become 
as  much  a  part  of  his  life  as  red  color-sensa- 
tions, or  if  the  habit  of  speech  with  Him  were 
as  ingrained  as  speech  with  his  other  friends, 
the  problem  of  disembodied  consciousness 
would,  it  is  true,  not  be  simpler,  but  at  least 
it  would  demand  an  acceptance  as  a  tyrannous 
fact  of  experience,  however  inconceivable  it 
might  be.  The  religious  men  of  all  times  have 
been  in  just  this  position.  They  have  not  al- 
ways been  unscientific  men ;  indeed,  they  have 
accepted  the  facts  of  their  religious  life  as  de- 
manding the  belief  in  a  God,  just  as  a  scien- 
tific man  accepts  certain  phenomena  when  he 
is  obliged  to,  however  difficult  they  are  to 
comprehend.  The  religious  man  says,  "  I  have 
certain  sensations  and  emotions  when  physically 
stimulated,  so  evidently  my  mind  and  my 
body  have  connection.  I  don't  know  what  that 
connection  is.  I  have  also  a  consciousness  at 
times  of  God's  presence.  I  have  an  affection 
for  Him.  I  feel  that  certain  things  are  possi- 
ble only  if  He  exists.  I  am  never  conscious  of 
Him  as  a  body.  I  cannot  believe  that  He  has 
one,  or  how  could  I  come  in  contact  with  Him 
as  I  know  I  do  ?  Therefore  I  believe  that  God 
exists  without  a  body,  although  I  don't  know 


66  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

how."  The  unbeliever  starts  with  the  same 
reasoning  as  the  religious  man,  but  continues 
in  another  fashion.  "  I  do  not  understand  the 
connection  between  mind  and  body,  it  is  true, 
but  I  am  forced  to  believe  that  there  is  one; 
I  am  not  forced  by  any  fact  in  my  experience 
to  believe  there  is  a  God,  since  I  do  not  feel 
Him ;  and  because  minds  and  bodies  have  al- 
ways come  together  in  my  experience,  I  shall 
assume  that  they  always  do,  until  I  have  rea- 
son to  think  something  else.  That  minds  might 
exist  without  bodies,  as  do  bodies  without 
minds,  is  theoretically  possible,  but  practically 
no  data  force  me  to  admit  the  probability." 

And  so  we  might  conceive  an  interested 
mind  without  a  body  joining  the  controversy 
and  saying,  with  a  wag  of  his  head,  "  It  is 
difficult  to  conceive  how  I  am  existing  with  no 
material  limits,  but  it  is  evident  that  I  do,  so 
I  must  accept  the  facts.  I  am  informed  that 
certain  minds  consider  themselves  attached  to 
a  mass  of  gray  substance  in  a  bony  and  fleshy 
structure.  They  say  that,  whenever  the  gray 
substance  is  excited,  they  are ;  and  paradox- 
ically enough,  if  it  is  too  much  excited,  they 
sometimes  cease  to  exist  altogether  for  certain 
periods,  or  conduct  themselves  oddly.  There 


THE  NATURE   OF   GOD   AND   OF   MAN   67 

may  be  something  in  it,  but  any  possible  con- 
nection between  a  mind  and  any  such  sub- 
stance is  so  difficult  to  comprehend,  that  I  am 
inclined  to  doubt  the  validity  of  their  convic- 
tion." If  this  mind  were  interested  in  us,  if  he 
wanted  to  make  our  acquaintance,  he  would 
look  us  up  a  little  further.  If  he  was  contented 
with  his  universe  as  it  was,  he  would  natu- 
rally dismiss  us  from  his  attention  altogether. 
Such  a  dismissal  would  not,  however,  aff ect  the 
question  of  our  existence  in  the  least. 

We  then,  who  hope  for  a  God,  need  not  be 
deterred  from  a  belief  in  Him  because  of  too 
great  a  difficulty  in  the  conception  of  a  mind 
without  bodily  limitations.  Must  we  also  be- 
lieve Him  above  all  mental  and  spiritual  limi- 
tations? And  if  we  so  believe,  are  we  not 
sacrificing  all  meaning  in  personality  ?  Is  there 
any  formulation  of  God's  nature  possible, 
which  shall  be  comprehensible  enough  to  be 
real,  and  yet  great  enough  to  be  more  than 
man,  —  that  is,  great  enough  to  be  real  Di- 
vinity ?  It  is  almost  a  paradoxical  situation .  An 
absolutely  ununderstandable  God  could  be  no 
part  of  our  experience,  and  a  God  who  could 
be  thoroughly  apprehended  would  have  be- 
come a  finite  thing  and  no  God  at  all.  But  we 


68  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

have  discovered  paradoxes  everywhere,  and 
have  found  that  they  are  not  made  an  excuse 
for  disbelief  by  those  who  hope  for  any  issue. 

If  we  are  to  have  what  we  hope  for,  what 
do  we  want  our  God  to  be?  What  would  be 
possible  evidence  of  such  a  nature  ?  Is  there 
such  evidence?  These  are  our  first  questions, 
and  to  answer  them  adequately  would  require 
a  spiritual  and  poetic  imagination  to  which  I 
lay  no  claim.  I  shall  simply  try  to  define 
what  most  ordinary  men  and  women  want 
when  they  desire  or  have  become  possessed  of 
some  religious  life. 

Which  demand  shall  have  expression  first 
depends  largely  on  the  individual.  It  would 
be  a  natural  consequence  of  his  previous  ex- 
perience whether  he  asked  first  for  comfort, 
relief  from  loneliness,  stimulation  for  better 
living,  or  optimistic  courage  for  the  future. 
Since  we,  however,  have  started  our  inquiries, 
spurred  on  by  intellectual  doubt,  our  first  ques- 
tion must  be  an  intellectual  one,  our  first  de- 
mand will  be  for  a  rationalizing  of  our  uni- 
verse. This,  in  point  of  fact,  is  the  question 
we  hear  asked  on  all  sides :  "  What  is  it  all 
about?  Why  are  we  here  going  through  cer- 
tain motions  in  an  unsatisfactory  world?  Grant- 


THE   NATURE   OF  GOD   AND   OF  MAN   69 

ing  that  there  is  a  God,  what  possible  reason 
could  He  have  had  in  setting  the  universe 
whirling  through  its  endless  and  apparently 
meaningless  cycles  ? '  For  such  questioners, 
it  is  absolutely  essential  that  God,  whatever 
else  He  mayor  may  not  do,  should  express  Him- 
self rationally.  His  nature  and  man's  must  have 
this  in  common,  that  both  are  governed  by 
motive,  by  meaning,  by  a  certain  high  sense. 
Only  that  character  can  have  dignity  which 
carries  out  some  kind  of  motive,  and  we  would 
rather  believe  the  reason  for  our  existence  to 
be  almost  anything,  than  believe  it  to  be  with- 
out reason  at  all.  A  God  with  no  reason,  with 
no  motive  whatever  in  His  creations,  would  be 
more  difficult  of  comprehension  than  any  other 
God,  or  no  God ;  and  certainly  rather  than  ac- 
cept such  a  God  (for  we  would  never  hope  for 
Him),  we  should  believe  that  He  did  not  exist. 
Clashing  with  this  demand  are  two  other 
classic  attributes  which  have  been  given  to 
God-head  for  many  generations.  These  are  the 
characteristics  of  omniscience  and  omnipotence. 
These  are  ascribed  to  God,  not  so  much  be- 
cause we  hope  for  them,  perhaps,  as  because 
we  feel  that  they  are  necessary  characteristics 
of  a  suitable  Divinity.  The  questioner  says 


70  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

rather  wearily,  "I  suppose  God  has  got  to  know 
everything,  past,  present,  and  future,  because 
He  made  it;  and  if  He  knows  everything  that 
is  coming  afterwards,  what  possible  point  can 
there  be  in  watching  it  roll  itself  interminably 
out?'  This  is  the  depressing  atmosphere  of 
fatalism,  of  predestination,  of  a  complete  fore- 
ordination,  —  an  atmosphere  which  we  breathe 
only  because  we  conscientiously  feel  we  ought. 
We  feel  we  must  go  in  for  a  complete  God, 
if  any.  If  He  knows  anything,  He  must  of 
course  know  everything;  if  He  made  anything, 
He  made  it  all ;  and  for  some  inexplicable  rea- 
son He  derives  a  satisfaction  from  watching 
His  plans  work  out  to  their  inevitable  conclu- 
sion. 

With  Earth's  first  clay  He  did  the  last  man  knead, 
And  there  of  the  last  Harvest  sowed  the  Seed  : 
And  the  first  Morning  of  Creation  wrote 
What  the  last  Dawn  of  Reckoning  shall  read. 

Yesterday  this  Day's  Madness  did  prepare ; 
To-morrow's  Silence,  Triumph,  or  Despair ; 
Drink  !  for  you  know  not  whence  you  came,  nor  why ; 
Drink !  for  you  know  not  why  you  go,  nor  where. 

The  natural  outcome  of  this  view  of  an 
omnipotent  God  is  a  total  loss  of  responsi- 
bility on  the  part  of  man.  A  God  who  can  do 


THE   NATURE   OF   GOD   AND   OF   MAN   71 

everything  He  wills,  and  who  willed  my  actions 
down  to  my  latest  mistake,  has  got  what  He 
wanted.  He  surely  cannot  hold  me  to  account 
for  what  I  have  done,  since  I  could  not  oppose 
Him  if  I  would. 

But  helpless  pieces  of  the  game  He  plays 
Upon  this  checquer-board  of  Nights  and  Days  ; 
Hither  and  thither  moves,  and  checks,  and  slays, 
And  one  by  one  back  in  the  Closet  lays. 

The  Ball  no  question  makes  of  Ayes  or  Noes, 
But  here  or  there,  as  strikes  the  Player,  goes, 
And  He  that  tossed  you  down  into  the  field, 
He  knows  about  it  all,  He  knows,  He  knows ! 

What !  from  His  helpless  Creature  be  repaid 
Pure  Gold  for  what  He  lent  him  dross  allayed ! 
Sue  for  a  debt  he  never  did  contract, 
And  cannot  answer  —  Oh  the  sorry  trade  ! 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  ascription  of 
omnipotence  and  omniscience  to  our  idea  of 
God's  existence  is  not  exactly  what  we  would 

choose  if  left  to  ourselves.  If  our  first  demand 

» 

for  motive  in  the  creation  of  the  world  and  of 
us  is  to  be  satisfied,  the  second  demand  for 
all-power  and  all-knowledge  would  have  to  be 
curtailed.  An  omnipotence  that  is  able  to 
make  puppets  of  men,  and  that  made  the  evil 
as  well  as  the  good ;  an  omniscience  that  knows 


72  THE  RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

to  its  minutest  detail  every  future  event,  be- 
comes at  once  to  our  understanding  devoid  of 
motive.  What  conceivable  reason  for  watch- 
ing the  play  ? 

It  might  be  that  God  could  do  anything, 
but  does  not  choose  to;  that  human  beings 
might  have  been  created  with  only  the  auto- 
matic reactions  of  the  lower  animals,  but  have 
been  allowed  to  exercise  their  own  will,  which 
God  respects.  This  voluntary  abridgment  of 
His  own  power  would  make  omnipotence  a 
rational  possibility,  —  otherwise  not. 

Since  we  are  embarked  on  a  voyage  of 
freedom,  and  have  thereby  lost  all  the  advan- 
tages of  authority  and  tradition,  let  us  at  least 
not  embrace  their  disadvantages.  If  we  do 
not  want  a  God  whose  hand  creates  every- 

& 

thing,  even  our  own  actions,  and  if  an  entire 
knowledge  of  future  development  seems  to 
deprive  creation  of  motive  and  makes  us  ask, 
"  Why  such  a  long  time  about  a  world  in  which 
novelty  is  impossible  ?  "  —  if  we  do  not  want 
all  this,  let  us  by  all  means  not  have  it.  Let 
us  not  feel  obliged  to  say  All-Creator,  All- 
Knower,  if  such  ascriptions  do  not  arise  from 
a  profound  desire  of  our  soul.  We  would 
choose  that  God  should  have  had  a  real  reason 


THE  NATURE   OF   GOD  AND  OF  MAN  73 

for  the  creation  of  the  universe,  a  reason  that 
somehow  includes  us.  We  would  choose  that 
His  personality  should  not  only  respect  ours 
and  allow  it  to  make  real  choices,  but  that  it 
should  love  us  and  help  us  to  make  them. 
His  power  would  then  not  be  the  absolute 
control  of  an  inventor  over  his  machines,  but 
the  influence  of  a  stronger  personality  over 
weaker  ones,  an  influence  which  has  its  limits, 
and  which  could  be  ignored  if  the  weaker  per- 
son chose  to  ignore  the  greater.  We  clutch, 
somehow,  at  the  right  to  disbelieve  in  God  if 
we  choose.  We  have  a  childish  satisfaction 
which  is  nevertheless  a  real  one,  in  believing 
that  even  a  God  cannot  make  us  have  faith 
where  we  will  not,  and  that,  whereas  God  in 
His  infinite  sympathy  will  not  overlook  us,  we 
can  if  we  choose  overlook  Him.  The  possi- 
bility of  disbelief  must  be  as  real  as  that  of 
belief,  and  whether  it  abridges  God's  power 
or  not,  we  insist  on  this  freedom.  We  choose, 
moreover,  that  some  kind  of  communication 
be  possible  between  God  and  ourselves,  that 
His  presence  may  be  invoked  by  some  kind  of 
exercise  on  our  part.  He  is  not  omnipresent 
in  the  sense  that  He  is  always  communing 
with  us,  or  that  we  can  always  evoke  the  same 


74  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

consciousness  of  His  presence.  In  fact,  if  He 
is  an  unwelcome  guest,  He  can  be  more  and 
more  completely  shut  out  from  our  universe, 
until  we  can  be  almost  certain  that  He  will 
not  speak  to  us  again.  We  can  be  without 
hope,  and  without  God  in  the  world,  if  we 
choose.  It  would  seem,  by  way  of  parenthesis, 
that  these  "  all  "-attributes  have  been  ascribed 
more  from  a  literary  and  aesthetic  demand 
than  from  a  religious  one.  Surely  the  Bible 
gives  us  to  understand  that  there  are  stub- 
born wills,  which  God,  if  He  will  respect 
them  as  persons,  cannot  bend ;  that  there  are 
outcomes  which  He  watches  rather  than  di- 
rects, and  that  there  are  dark  places  of  the 
human  soul  where  God  is  not  present.  But 
the  Bible  aside,  —  for  we  have  for  the  present 
cut  loose  from  authority,  —  God's  nature  only 
has  meaning  for  us  if  we  limit  its  scope.  That 
is,  however  it  all  might  have  been  created 
otherwise,  since  the  fact  remains  that  we  as 
human  beings  do  exist  in  the  universe  as  we 
find  it,  the  only  motive  for  it  all  must  be  an 
end  to  which  we  contribute  something,  and 
which  could  not  be  brought  about  perfectly 
without  us.  We  are  not  chess-men,  but  col- 
laborators. 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD  AND  OF  MAN  75 

We  must  assume,  moreover,  if  we  are  to 
consider  the  subject  any  further,  that  it  is 
possible  for  us  to  comprehend  to  some  degree 
this  motive  for  creation.  To  say  that  we  de- 
mand a  God  with  a  motive,  and  then  not  to 
seek  for  this  motive,  or  at  least  not  formulate 
a  motive  that  would  satisfy  us  if  it  were  His, 
would  be  a  very  incomplete  treatment  of  the 
subject.  We  have  presumably  been  hunting 
for  a  motive  for  creation  and  have  not  found 
one,  or  perhaps  have  seemed  to  find  too  many. 
Sometimes  the  motive  seems  to  be  cruelty, 
sometimes  a  mere  observation  of  development 
as  such,  with  no  end,  or  sometimes  even  a 
high  amusement  over  man's  absurdities.  None 
of  these  reasons  which  do  not  involve  a  final- 
ity, an  end  wished  for  which  is  good  in  itself, 
are  very  satisfactory,  and  we  are  fatigued  with 
our  hunt.  The  data  of  the  universe  seem  to 
point  in  all  directions  and  to  many  possible 
motives.  We  shall  therefore  give  up  our  search 
and  begin  the  analysis  of  our  real  wishes.  If 
we  can  decide  what  would  be  a  supremely  satis- 
fying motive,  and  what  would  be  the  means  of 
such  a  will's  expression,  we  may  find  such  an 
expression  at  hand,  and  find,  too,  that  we  have 
a  better  right  to  hope  for  it  than  for  any  other. 


76  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

Suppose  we  apply  ourselves  without  timidity 
to  the  colossal  task  of  trying  to  imagine  our- 
selves as  a  God  on  the  eve  of  Creation.  This 
is  surely  a  daring  undertaking  for  finite  minds. 
"  Shall  the  clay  say  to  him  that  fashioneth 
it,  What  makest  thou?'  But  when  this  very 
question  was  asked,  the  prophet,  stern  and 
contemptuous  though  he  was  of  the  presump- 
tion of  weak  humanity  in  addressing  questions 
to  its  Creator,  was  obliged  to  admit  that  man 
had  a  right  to  inquire,  and  he  trumpeted  forth 
the  Lord's  answer :  "  I  have  not  spoken  in 
secret,  in  a  dark  place  of  the  earth  :  I  said  not 
unto  the  seed  of  Jacob,  Seek  ye  me  in  vain  :  I, 
the  Lord,  speak  righteousness,  I  declare  things 
that  are  right." 

If,  then,  God  has  not  spoken  in  secret  but 
in  open  places,  —  and  He  must  have  so  spoken 
if  we  are  to  understand  his  nature  in  any  de- 
gree, -  -what  is  the  plan,  the  motive,  the  rea- 
son, that  would  prompt  and  justify  a  universe 
like  ours? 

This  is  a  question  to  be  worked  out  in  a 
great  epic  and  not  in  the  simplest  of  prose.  A 
poem  might  be  written  which  should  probe 
further  back  than  "  Paradise  Lost,"  or  even 
Paradise  Created,  to  expound  the  emotions 


THE  NATURE   OF   GOD  AND   OF  MAN   77 

of  a  solitary  Divinity  choosing  to  create  at  all. 
We  might  very  fitly  acknowledge  at  once  that 
the  question  is  too  deep  for  us.  But  if  we  are 
determined  to  think  through  all  possibilities 
without  reserve,  we  must  ask  ourselves, "  What 
could  have  been  the  reason  ? '  As  we  review 
the  over-powering  spectacle  of  the  evolution 
of  countless  ages,  the  slow  development  of 
new  forms  and  their  apparent  culmination  in 
man,  we  are  stupefied  at  the  immensity  of  it 
all.  Perhaps  nothing  is  more  astounding  than 
that  man  —  who  so  plainly  is  the  outgrowth  of 
lower  forms,  and  whose  organism  bears  the 
traces  of  the  journey  which  it  has  traveled  — 
suddenly  turns  his  back  on  his  past,  and  an- 
nounces to  the  rest  of  creation,  "  I  am  like  you, 
you  have  helped  to  make  me,  but  I  am  not  of 
you.  We  are  akin,  but  you  are  not  my  creator. 
Your  society  is  not  enough,  I  must  talk  with 
my  God."  If  we  were  watching  the  process 
of  evolution  from  the  outside,  perhaps  nothing 
would  astonish  us  more  than  this.  Where  did 
man  get  this  idea?  How  does  he  dare  to  make 
such  an  assertion,  which  his  more  humble  for- 
bears did  not  dream  of  ?  It  would  almost  seem 
as  if  this  were  the  moment  for  which  God  had 
been  waiting.  What  could  be  a  more  valid 


78  THE   RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

reason  for  the  long  work  of  making  a  world 
of  men,  than  that  finally  the  world  should  turn 
and  assert  its  own  divinity,  and  provide  not  a 
problem  alone,  but  a  companion. 

Is  this  anthropomorphic  ?  It  is,  and  what 
of  it  ?  Any  Divine  motive  must  be  of  the  same 
order  as  a  human  motive  to  be  in  the  faintest 
degree  comprehensible  to  us,  and  therefore 
we  must  fall  into  either  anthropomorphism 
or  agnosticism.  There  is  no  alternative,  and 
it  is  as  much  an  unproved  creed  to  assert  that 
God's  motives  cannot  be  fathomed,  as  to  affirm 
that  they  can.  Let  us  once  more  assure  fear- 
ful souls  that  they  are  living  no  more  by  an 
unproved  faith  when  they  say,  "  I  believe  that 
God  is  a  Person,  who  has  made  the  world  with 
its  culmination  in  man,  for  the  purpose  of  com- 
panionship with  Himself,"  than  if  they  say, 
"  There  is  no  God,  and  if  there  were  I  could  not 
follow  His  motives."  Some  state  of  the  case  for 
or  against  must  be  true,  and  we  are  no  more  su- 
perstitious to  believe  what  we  hope  than  what 
we  fear.  Moreover,  while  we  may  say,  "I  am 
impartial,  I  believe  absolutely  nothing  about 
the  matter,"  we  must  live,  and  we  must  think 
as  if  one  or  the  other  were  true,  if  we  are  to 
live  and  think  at  all.  And  as  rational  beings 


THE  NATURE   OF   GOD  AND   OF  MAN   79 

we  prefer  thought,  even  upon  unproved  prem- 
ises, to  either  bodily  or  mental  suicide.  We 
could  just  as  reasonably  and  as  zealously  de- 
vote ourselves  to  making  rational  the  non-exist- 

o 

ence  of  a  God,  or  the  absence  of  His  beneficent 
motives,  if  that  were  the  issue  for  which  we 
hoped.  To  any  one  who  calls  us  superstitious 
both  in  our  desire  for  a  God  and  in  our  high 
valuation  of  man,  we  can  but  answer  :  "  We 
prefer  this  to  the  equal  superstition  of  a  desire 
for  a  mechanical  world  without  God,  and  a 
lesser  opinion  of  man's  value.  Let  our  oppo- 
nent make  his  case  rational  and  we  will  attempt 
to  make  ours  so." 

Suppose  then  that  a  God  wants  the  compan- 
ionship of  persons.  That  would  be  an  adequate 
reason  for  any  amount  of  world-making,  for 
an  infinite  patience  and  an  unbounded  inter- 
est in  the  developing  of  His  plans.  It  would 
also  imply  that  a  freedom  to  converse  with  Him 
or  not  to  do  so  must  be  present  in  these  per- 
sons to  make  their  friendship  of  any  value,  and 
that,  however  different  they  might  be  from 
their  Great  Companion,  they  must  have  cer- 
tain important  characteristics  in  common.  We 
are  assuming  for  the  nature  of  God  only  the 

o  J 

attributes  we  must  have,  only  those  we  long 


80  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

for ;  and  we  will  not  adopt  any  others,  how- 
ever classic,  unless  we  want  them.  We  do  not 
longfor  an  omnipotence  that  forces  our  choices; 
for  an  omnipresence  which  makes  us  say,  "God 
is  in  even  the  evil  desires  of  our  hearts  " ;  for  we 
prefer  to  assume  even  the  blackest  responsibil- 
ity for  them  rather  than  to  say  that  God  is  part 
of  them.  Even  an  omniscience  that  makes  every 
detail  of  the  game  a  foregone  conclusion  seems 
an  oppressive  possession ;  so  we  do  not  admit  it 
as  harmonious  with  the  highest  reasonableness. 
We  reserve  the  possibility  for  the  emotions  of 
joy  or  of  disappointment  in  the  Deity  we  are 
hoping  for,  and  like  to  think  that  we  can  be 
even  better  than  was  expected  of  us,  as  well  as 
worse.  We  do  desire  a  power  that  can  influence 
other  personalities,  as  great  characters  can  al- 
ways influence  their  kind  without  depriving 
them  of  freedom.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  not 
the  only  free  man  among  his  contemporaries ; 
yet  certainly  their  actions  would  have  been 
different  if  he  had  not  existed.  Napoleon  was 
not  the  only  person  in  Europe,  nor  did  Paul 
deprive  all  his  followers  of  their  wills  because 
he  exerted  his  influence  powerfully  in  one  di- 
rection. An  energy  radiates  from  great  per- 
sonalities, which  makes  their  admirers  want  to 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD  AND  OF  MAN  81 

follow  them,  just  as  it  makes  their  opponents 
want  to  defy  them ;  and  God's  power  shall  be 
of  their  character,  though  of  an  extent  and  a 
might  surpassing  human  examples.  He  must 
be  always  present,  in  the  sense  that  no  spatial 
limits  divide  the  human  soul  from  His,  and 
that  a  human  being  can  always  call  upon  Him 
when  he  will.  On  the  other  hand,  the  human 
soul  can  preserve  its  own  limitations  and  refuse 
to  admit,  not  only  His  presence,  but  His  exist- 
ence. Sometimes  the  greater  personality  insists 
on  certain  periods  of  recognition,  —  as  when 
Saul  of  Tarsus  was  arrested  unwillingly  on 
his  way  to  Damascus.  Sometimes  the  greater 
waits  for  the  summons  of  the  less.  As  in  any 
other  matter,  long  habit  makes  intercourse 
either  more  easy  or  more  difficult,  so  that  a 
man  may  atrophy  his  power  to  commune  with 
God  if  he  chooses.  Perhaps  no  one  would  hope 
that  such  a  lack  of  opportunity  to  commune 
with  His  human  creatures  would  atrophy  God's 
power  or  His  willingness  to  answer  a  human 
call. 

Our  list  of  attributes  does  not  need  to  be 
long.  A  Divine  personality  that,  for  some  de- 
sire of  His  own  nature,  causes  a  race  of  men 
to  work  itself  out  through  a  long  stage  of  de- 


82  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

velopment,  to  be  companions  of  Himself  and 
the  objects  of  His  supreme  devotion,  is  a  sim- 
ple conception.  That  this  nature  shall  be  su- 
premely good  we  demand ;  this  we  must  have. 
That  His  goodness  shall  include  both  justice 
and  sympathy,  we  also  demand,  and  a  power 
and  presence  wide  enough  to  give  every  man 
an  opportunity  to  guess,  in  some  slight  man- 
ner at  least,  His  character.  That  our  actions 
make  a  real  difference  in  the  world's  history 
and  that  we  are  to  be  not  simply  moved,  but 
watched  with  an  interest  in  the  issue  only 
greater  in  degree  than  our  own,  this  we  also 
demand,  to  give  a  dignity  to  human  living. 
Who  can  say  how  far  he  would  want  this  fore- 
sight to  extend  ?  I  do  not  feel  myself  less  free 
because  my  friend  knows  I  will  not  murder 
him.  or  because  he  feels  certain  I  will  not  set 
the  house  on  fire.  Neither  am  I  less  free  be- 
cause he  knows  that  in  all  likelihood  I  shall 
sometimes  lose  my  temper,  or  that  I  may  for- 
get my  appointments.  He  knows  it  because 
he  knows  me,  but  his  knowing  it  does  not 
make  it  happen.  That  an  Infinite  Personality, 
who  has  a  peculiar  access  to  all  minds,  which 
is  not  given  to  us,  should  have  a  knowledge 
of  events  to  come,  is  highly  probable,  and  I 


THE   NATURE   OF   GOD   AND   OF  MAN  83 

think  we  should  wish  it;  for  however  little 
meaning  the  words  Past  and  Future  have 

o 

to  a  timeless  Being,  if  He  understands  the 
universe  He  has  made,  He  undestands  the 
significance  these  terms  have  for  us.  That 
this  fore-knowledge  should  be  complete  we 
certainly  do  not  crave  ;  and  since  an  interest 
in  world  development  seems  more  rational 
with  some  issues  uncertain,  and  since  we  are 
at  present  dogmatic,  we  shall  say  His  fore- 
knowledge is  not  complete. 

This,  then,  is  our  God,  and  this  is  the  reason 
that  we  have  been  created.  Why  just  this  line 
of  development  was  chosen,  why  we  are  al- 
lowed to  suffer,  why  God  does  not  manifest 
Himself  more  clearly,  we  shall  consider  later. 
We  are  interested  now  simply  in  finding  a 
reason  why  a  God  should  want  a  world  with 
men  in  it,  what  a  God  would  want  His  men  to 
be,  and  what  in  turn  men  want  their  God  to 
be. 

It  would  certainly  be  essential  that  the 
most  important  point  in  God's  character  should 
be  the  one  most  easily  comprehended  by  man. 
That  is,  if  the  prime  feature  of  His  nature 
were  the  extent  of  His  knowledge,  we  should 
have  even  more  difficulty  than  we  do  now  in 


84  THE  RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

deciding  how  much  we  believe.  The  fact  of 
the  matter  is,  however,  that  we  do  not  care  so 
much  about  how  much  He  knows,  as  we  do 
about  His  goodness  and  His  love  for  us.  If 
we  should  have  reason  to  think  that  some- 
times God  did  not  know  what  would  be  the 
issue  of  a  given  struggle,  we  should  not  be 
so  much  disturbed  as  if  we  believed  that  He 
occasionally  indulged  in  lapses  from  goodness. 
That  we  could  not  endure.  Rather  no  God 
than  one  who  is  not  wholly  good.  The  good 
character  of  God  is  for  us  all  the  essential  fact 
of  God's  character,  and,  arguing  from  ana- 
logy, very  probably  it  is  the  first  demand  He 
makes  of  us.  However  much  we  may  yearn 
for  the  love  of  our  Creator,  I  suppose  the 
most  despairing  religious  penitent  would  be 
less  revolted  by  the  scorn  and  wrath  of  a  good 
God,  than  by  the  love  of  a  bad  one.  The 
beauty  of  holiness  has  at  least  this  charm  for 
us  all,  that  whether  we  believe  it  to  exist  in 
God  or  in  man,  if  a  God  exists  at  all,  that 
must  be  His  eternal  attribute.  It  would  seem 
almost  as  if  this  were  of  itself  enough  of  a 
character  with  which  to  endow  our  Divinity; 
but  at  any  rate  we  should  expect  this,  the 
most  essential  and  yet  the  most  easily  under- 


THE  NATURE   OF   GOD  AND  OF  MAN   85 

stood  trait  of  the  Divine  character,  to  be  the 
form  in  which  His  invitations  and  His  revela- 
tions to  man  would  be  couched.  It  is  perhaps 
the  only  feature  of  the  Divine  nature  which 
He  can  demand  of  us  to  share  with  Him.  We 
are  speaking  for  the  present  age  of  course. 
A  million  years  from  now,  who  shall  say? 
Perhaps  man  can  be  more  of  a  companion  for 
his  Maker  in  other  respects  as  well. 

We  must  emphasize  the  importance  of  the 
moral  world  as  our  real  bond  with  God,  as 
our  common  language,  because  we  find,  low 
in  the  scale  of  holiness  as  we  feel  ourselves  to 
be,  that  it  represents  the  one  claim  we  have 
to  any  universal  advance  over  the  lower  ani- 
mals. Some  of  us,  to  be  sure,  have  achieved 
great  things  in  art,  most  of  us  have  not.  Some 
of  us  know  a  great  deal,  but  most  of  us  know 
very  little.  I  stand  with  my  dog  before  St. 
Mark's  in  Venice ;  we  look  together  at  it,  and 
I  realize  that  I  could  no  more  have  made  it 
than  he.  We  listen  to  a  Wagnerian  opera, 
and  I  know  I  could  as  little  have  created  it  as 
I  could  a  world.  We  sit  together  on  the  steps 
of  the  Parthenon,  and  look  out  over  the  groves 
of  Plato,  the  Lyceum  of  Aristotle,  the  prison 
of  Socrates,  and  the  Mars  Hill  of  Paul,  and  I 


86  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

feel  that,  so  far  as  wisdom  is  concerned,  my 
dog  is  more  my  brother  than  they.  If  my  sal- 
vation depended  on  my  genius  for  thought 
or  creation,  I  should  be  in  sorry  case.  That 
Michael  Angelo  could  paint  a  ceiling  proves 
nothing  about  me,  and  that  he  would  be  a  fit 
companion  for  a  beauty -loving  God  would 
prove,  if  it  proved  anything,  tltat  I  could  never 
be.  We  cannot  group  the  human  race  in  this 
fashion,  and  say  that  we  are  all  stupendous 
creatures,  because  some  of  our  species  built 
cathedrals  or  wrote  epics.  We  know  that  we 
are  not  all  of  that  timber,  and  that  any  God 
who  could  be  revealed  only  through  the  life 
of  beauty  or  of  wisdom  must  be  an  unknown 
quantity,  not  only  to  us,  but  to  thousands 
who  are  even  less  gifted  than  we  are.  That 
God  could  reveal  Himself  in  any  channel,  and 
that  He  has  so  done,  is  doubtless  true;  but 
a  just  God  must  make  His  avenue  of  approach 
one  easy  enough  to  understand,  that  the  way- 
faring man,  though  a  fool,  may  not  err  therein. 
It  may  be  a  blow  to  our  self-love  to  relinquish 
any  share  in  these  brilliant  human  achieve- 
ments, and  to  admit  that  they  are  no  more 
our  doing  than  as  if  their  creators  had  not 
happened  to  be  of  the  same  genus  as  we.  But 


THE  NATURE   OF   GOD   AND  OF  MAN  87 

we  always  gain  by  any  such  sacrifice.  Every 
loss  means  a  certain  freedom;  and  just  as  I 
am  not  related  to  the  achievements  of  a  Leo- 
nardo simply  because  we  are  both  classed 
physiologically  as  human,  so  I  am  not  related 
to  the  defects  of  the  animal  world  because  I 
share  a  back-bone  with  my  dog,  and  have  a 
nervous  system  akin  to  the  frog's.  If  there 
were  a  God-communion  possible  for  a  Leo- 
nardo, simply  through  the  avenue  of  art,  or 
one  for  Kant  only  through  his  metaphysics, 
there  would  be  no  such  communion  possible 
for  the  rest  of  us  just  because  we  and  these 
great  ones  were  cousins.  So,  vice  versa,  if 
there  is  no  God-communication  possible  for 
the  lower  animals,  we  as  human  beings  are 
not  necessarily  without  a  God-language  be- 
cause we  too  are  cousins.  The  thing  that  binds 
us,  the  humblest  of  us,  with  human  genius 
and  with  God,  is  our  moral  likeness,  our  abil- 
ity to  see  an  ethical  issue,  and  to  choose  duty 
for  its  own  sake.  This  is  our  common  lan- 
guage; this  is  the  characteristic  of  God  we 
can  understand,  however  over-powering  His 
knowledge  and  His  power  may  be. 

The  biologist  may  insist,  "  What  folly  to 
consider  man  as  so  different  from  the  or^an- 

o 


88  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

isms  from  which  he  has  sprung.  We  are  all 
protoplasm  together,  and  how  can  one  branch 
of  the  family  be  called  children  of  God,  and 
the  others  children  of  matter?'  No  doubt  it 
is  an  astonishing  fact  that  man  has  reared  his 
head  and  announced  his  connection  with  an 
invisible  Almighty;  but  the  fact  that  he  has 
done  so  entitles  him  to  consideration.  It  all 
depends  on  the  question  whether  we  find  our 
differences  from  the  animals  below  us  more 
significant,  even  if  not  more  numerous,  than 
our  likenesses  to  them.  That  our  kinship  with 
them  and  our  common  root  with  them  affect 
in  the  remotest  degree  our  possible  commu- 
nication with  God,  or  our  destiny  as  planned 
by  Him,  it  is  difficult  to  see.  Suppose  a  man 
surrounds  himself  with  enough  steak,  pota- 
toes, and  water,  to  last  him,  say,  seven  years. 
At  the  end  of  that  time,  his  entire  body  will 
be  made  over.  Each  cell  of  his  bony  and  fleshy 
tissue  has  been  renewed  by  these  three  in- 
gredients and  the  air  he  has  breathed,  so  that 
strictly  nothing  is  left  of  him  of  the  period 
before  he  began  this  diet.  Would  he  thereby 
consider  that  he  had  lost  his  birthright? 
Would  he  be  crushed  by  the  sense  of  being 
beefsteak  or  a  potato  ?  So  far  as  intimacy  of 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD  AND  OF  MAN  89 

connection  is  concerned,  and  a  recreation  of 
each  of  his  cells  made  possible  through  theirs, 
he  cannot  deny  a  certain  sonship.  But  he  is 
not  of  their  kin,  and  he  knows  it. 

Armiincr  in  the  same  manner  (for  while  the 

O  O  V 

foregoing  analogy  is  not  perfect,  it  may  be 
suggestive),  though  our  kinship  with  the 
other  animals  were  more  evident  than  it  is ; 
even  if  we  still  went  on  all  fours,  or  lived  in 
trees,  as  soon  as  we  felt  the  impulsion  of  an 
inward  voice  of  conscience,  and  chose  to  talk 
with  our  God  as  well  as  with  our  fellows,  our 
difference  from  the  rest  of  creation  would  be 
more  profound  than  our  likeness.  We  should 
have  become  to  some  extent  companions  of 
the  Deity. 

We  shall  assume,  then,  that  God's  motive 
in  creation  was  to  make  possible  a  race  of 
beings  who  should  yearn  for  Him,  and  should 
create  an  imas'e  of  Him  in  their  souls,  as  He 

O  ' 

had  created  them  out  of  a  kindred  desire  for 
their  existence.  It  is  this  supreme  alternative 
of  mutual  love  or  of  mutual  annihilation  that 
makes  man  to  some  extent  God's  equal. 

Granted  that  this  is  the  most  reasonable 
motive,  and  perhaps  the  only  motive  at  once 
reasonable  and  sympathetic,  that  we  can  con- 


90  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

ceive  for  our  creation,  how  could  a  God  com- 
municate with  such  beings  when  they  were 
finally  evolved,  and  ready  for  Him?  We  can 
understand  that  a  forced  communion  with  us 
would  have  defeated  His  own  end  of  a  volun- 
tary companionship,  and  that  our  devotion,  if 
it  did  not  arise  from  a  desire  of  our  own  na- 
ture, would  be  too  little  godlike  to  be  worth 
the  having.  On  the  other  hand,  was  not  this 
freedom  to  ignore  Him  a  dangerous  gift? 
Did  He  not  with  this  very  dignity  of  relation 
between  us  run  the  risk  of  not  being  able  to 
communicate  with  us  at  all?  From  even  a 
cursory  glance  at  history  or  present-day  so- 
ciety, this  seems  undoubtedly  to  be  the  case. 
Surely  humanity,  for  long  periods  and  over 
wide  areas,  has  enjoyed  its  own  society  exclu- 
sively, with  no  yearning  for  the  Divine  pres- 
ence ;  and  while  doubtless  many  we  know  not 
of  have  always  kept  an  altar-fire  burning,  it 
has  not  always  reflected  much  light  on  society 
at  large.  Can  we  fathom  to  any  degree  what 
must  have  been  the  effect  of  such  exclusion 
on  the  mind  of  God?  What  would  be  the 
emotion  of  a  Creator  in  seeing  the  failure  of 
His  ripest  work,  the  indifference  of  His  dear- 
est children?  What  extra  means  of  com- 


THE  NATURE   OF  GOD   AND   OF  MAN   91 

munion  would  He  strive  to  establish?  and 
would  there  be  a  point  where  even  a  God 
must  say,  "  I  can  do  no  more  "  ? 

So  far  as  we  know,  even  the  lowest  orders 
of  savages  have  some  kind  of  conception  of 
Deity.  However  incomplete  may  be  their  es- 
timate of  Him,  and  however  detached  they 
are  from  daily  communion,  to  say  nothing  of 
friendship  with  Him,  still  the  existence  of  an 
invisible  Power  seems  a  possible  conception 
to  all  human  minds.  We  shall  not  try  to  probe 
too  far  into  the  thoughts  of  historic  man, 
since  that  involves  an  ethnological  knowledge 
of  which  we  cannot  be  certain.  But  at  least 
this  common  capacity  for  conceiving  an  in- 
visible God,  to  whom  man  is  under  some  kind 
of  obligation,  seems  a  universal  gift.  Just  as 
primitive  man  talked  with  his  fellows  and 
entered  into  ceremonials  with  his  kind,  he 
talked  and  made  obeisance  before  his  God. 
But  this  was  not  enough.  Certain  men  who 
had  the  sense  of  communion  with  God  more 
vividly  than  others  became  convinced  that 
God  was  not  simply  a  power,  but  a  power  for 
righteousness. 

This  was  a  further  revelation  for  those  who 
had  a  desire  for  something  higher ;  but,  just  as 


92  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

before  some  had  doubtless  believed  and  some 
disbelieved  in  any  God,  so  now  some  wanted 
a  good  God,  and  some  did  not.  With  certain 
men  God  had  succeeded,  and  with  others  He 
had  failed.  Can  we  not  imagine  God  saying, 
as  indeed  He  has  been  interpreted  by  the 
prophets,  "  Wherefore  do  ye  spend  money  for 
that  which  is  not  bread?  and  your  labour  for 
that  which  satisfieth  not?''  or,  to  translate  it 
into  prose,  "  Is  it  possible  that  these  men  can- 
not see  that  goodness  is  better  than  sin,  that  it 
is  folly  to  ignore  a  God  whom  they  may  have 
for  the  asking,  only  to  torment  themselves 
with  other  godless  men  who  demand  a  high 
price  for  their  companionship?'  Through 
those  who  had  come  to  understand  Him,  He 
sent  His  message,  "  Incline  your  ear,  and  come 
unto  me ;  hear  and  your  soul  shall  live  ";  and 
periodically  in  the  world's  history,  because  of 
these  special  appeals  from  men  who  had  a  more 
intimate  knowledge  of  God  than  they,  some 
have  inclined  their  ear  and  have  come,  and 
some  have  not. 

If,  then,  an  inborn  tendency  to  speak  to  God 
was  not  enough  to  make  men  believe  in  Him, 
if  the  messages  and  eloquence  of  gifted  seers 
did  not  always  open  communication,  what 


THE  NATURE  OF   GOD   AND   OF   MAN  93 

could  ?  What  was  there  left  to  try  ?  No  appeal 
to  the  sensations  in  the  way  of  visions,  voices, 
touches,  feelings  of  presence,  trances,  stigmata, 
or  speaking  in  strange  tongues,  could  make 
a  very  widespread  impression.  If  we  are  to  be- 
lieve records,  everv  one  of  these  methods  was 

i/ 

attempted,  to  arrest  the  attention  of  mankind ; 
but  the  very  fact  that  we  seldom  believe  such 
reports  is  evidence  enough  that  we  make  it 
impossible  for  God  to  speak  to  us  in  that  way. 
It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  humblest  man  may 
assure  us  that  he  exists  by  speaking  to  us  aloud; 
but  nowadays  (whatever  may  have  been  the 
case  formerly),  even  if  we  admit  the  theoretic 
possibility  that  a  God  could  produce  auditory 
sensations  in  our  minds,  few  of  us  consider 
such  a  voice  convincing:.  A  man  who  hears  an 

o 

unseen  speaker  nowadays  does  not  answer,  but 
goes  to  a  nerve  specialist;  and  if  we  all  heard 
voices,  we  should  consider  ourselves  mad,  but 
not  religious.  I  am  only  re-insisting  on  this 
point,  to  indicate  how  we  limit  the  avenues 
of  communication  with  a  possible  God.  It  is 
surely  an  advance  to  a  more  spiritual  concep- 
tion of  Divinity  when  we  do  not  depend  on 
sense-stimulation,  always  provided  we  do  not 
at  the  same  time  disbelieve  in  Him  for  not  ex- 


94  THE  RIGHT   TO  BELIEVE 

pressing  Himself  in  a  way  we  should  not  credit 
if  He  did.  In  the  asres  when  men  believed  in 

o 

voices,  they  heard  them ;  when  they  disbelieve 
in  them  they  hear  them  as  heavenly  voices  no 
more.  The  test  of  validity  in  any  case  has  always 
been  —  the  effect  on  the  moral  life  of  the  in- 
dividual. If  he  is  no  better  than  before,  if  no 
great  resolve  results  from  the  interview  whether 
of  voices  or  of  thoughts,  we  question  the  actu- 
ality of  his  communion.  If  he  becomes  a  Paul, 
we  are  less  likely  to  question  the  reality  of  his 
experience  on  the  road  to  Damascus. 

Let  me  say  right  here,  that  any  sharp  dis- 
tinction between  God's  speaking  to  our  ears 
and  His  speaking  to  our  minds  is,  on  closer 
scrutiny,  a  meaningless  one.  What  happens 
when  I  hear  a  spoken  word  ?  What  happens 
when  I  think  a  spoken  word  but  do  not  hear 
it?  When  I  hear  a  word  spoken,  it  means  that 
air- waves  have  been  set  in  vibration ;  they  strike 
against  my  ear-drum,  they  are  communicated 
through  little  bones  to  my  inner  ear,  whence 
they  are  taken  up  by  nerve-endings  spread  out 
in  the  cochlea,  and  from  thence  transmitted 
along  the  auditory  nerve  to  my  brain.  There 
is  a  particular  area  of  my  brain,  just  behind 
my  temples,  devoted  to  the  reception  of  sound- 


THE   NATURE   OF  GOD  AND   OF   MAN   95 

stimuli,  and  if  this  area  were  destroyed,  I  should 
be  as  unable  to  hear  as  if  my  ear-drum  were 
gone  or  my  auditory  nerve  paralyzed.  This, 
then,  is  the  circuit  for  sound  vibrations  to  make 
before  I  can  hear  a  spoken  word.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  merely  think  a  spoken  word,  but 
do  not  hear  it,  it  means  that  this  same  brain-area 
is  active,  but  without  the  aid  of  stimuli  com- 
ing from  the  outside.  The  auditory  brain-cen- 
tre has  been  excited,  not  by  vibrations  from 
outside,  but  by  stimulations  from  other  centres 
in  the  brain  itself.  If  this  auditory  area  were 
destroyed,  we  could  not  only  not  hear  sounds, 
but  we  could  not  remember  or  imagine  them. 
The  only  difference,  then,  between  the  two 
situations  is,  that  in  one  case  the  excitement 
comes  to  the  auditory  area  through  the  ear, 
and  in  the  other  case  from  another  part  of  the 
brain.  Any  idea  you  may  have  -  -  scientifically 
speaking  —  is  just  as  causally  brought  about, 
whether  its  stimulus  happens  to  come  by  way 
of  an  ear-drum,  or,  say,  by  way  of  the  visual 
centre  in  the  back  of  your  brain.  We  must 
understand  this  very  clearly,  so  that  we  may 
not  profess  toward  any  one  possible  God-mani- 
festation a  scorn  that  we  do  not  toward  any 
other.  We  cannot  in  reason  sneer  against  the 

o 


96  THE  EIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

voice  that  Samuel  heard,  and  yet  believe  in  the 
voice  of  conscience  that  we  have  ourselves. 
Both  are  accompanied  by  brain-excitement  of 
some  kind,  one  by  way  of  the  auditory  nerve,  and 
one  by  way  of  the  association-centres  perhaps ; 
but  in  any  case  both  have  nervous  accompani- 
ment of  some  kind,  and  the  brain  is  not  a  whit 
more  ethereal  or  spiritual  in  its  essence  than 
the  auditory  nerve.  It  is  quite  plain  that,  scien- 
tifically speaking,  there  is  no  room  for  God 
anywhere  on  this  nervous  circuit.  If  He  is  not 
a  material  force,  He  cannot  set  air-waves  in  mo- 
tion to  strike  against  our  tympanum  without 
tearing  a  hole  in  conservation  of  energy,  - 
which  seems  to  be  one  of  His  universal  laws. 
Just  as  little  could  He  set  up  a  nervous  excite- 
ment in  our  brain  and  bring  an  idea  into  our 
minds,  that  would  not  have  followed  previous 
causes.  If  God  put  one  nervous  thrill  into  a 
brain-cell,  and  thereby  roused  up  a  cortical 
stimulation  not  related  to  other  nervous  causes, 
it  would  be  as  much  of  a  break  in  causal  laws, 
and  as  unbelievable  a  miracle,  as  if  He  thun- 
dered sermons  from  all  the  stones.  We  are, 
then,  much  misled  if  we  have  taken  refuge 
behind  the  scientific  possibility  of  convers- 
ing with  our  God  in  mind,  but  not  in  voice. 


THE  NATURE   OF   GOD  AND   OF   MAN   97 

The  possibility  of  either  stands  or  falls  with 
the  other,  and  it  is  only  by  their  fruits  we 
shall  know  them.  Our  desire  for  food  is  physi- 
cally a  matter  of  certain  brain-stimulation  and 
nervous  excitement  in  the  throat  and  stomach  ; 
our  determination  to  risk  our  life  for  a  friend 
is  also  accompanied  by  certain  brain  excite- 
ment, and  our  affection  for  our  parents  has 
no  less  nervous  stimulation  than  our  desire  to 
go  to  sleep.  We  may  make  as  much  distinction 
as  we  like  between  the  value  of  these  different 
experiences,  but  one  is  no  more  apart  from 
brain-excitement  than  the  other,  and  our  desire 
for  God  neither  more  nor  less  than  they. 

Where,  then,  in  this  closed  circuit  of  physi- 
cal stimulation,  which  is  transmitted  along  ner- 
vous tissue,  is  there  the  slightest  place  for  God? 
Grant  that  He  exists,  and  that  He  wants  to 
speak  with  us,  how,  from  our  heights  of  scien- 
tific logic,  can  we  allow  Him  to?  Our  nervous 
systems  accompany  (Heaven  knows  why !)  every 
slightest  thought  or  sensation  we  have  with 
physical,  that  is,  nervous  excitement,  and  how 
by  any  possibility  can  a  spiritual  God  interpose 
His  influence  without  shattering  this  closely 
knit  chain  of  physical  cause  and  effect  wrhich 
He  apparently  willed,  and  which  we  have  with 


98  THE   RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

so  much  pains  discovered?  After  creating  His 
world,  is  He  not  confronted  with  the  fact  that 
to  converse  with  His  chosen  ones  is  not  only 
difficult,  but  of  its  nature  impossible? 

There  is  plainly  no  room  for  God  in  the 
causal  universe  He  has  made ;  and  curiously 
enough  there  is  no  room  for  us  either!  God's 
mind  and  ours  have  got  to  walk  off  the  scene 
together,  there  is  no  nook  or  cranny  for  either 
of  us!  For  the  case  of  our  own  mentality  is 
as  impossible  of  explanation  as  God's,  and  the 
possibility  of  knowing,  myself,  what  is  in  my 
own  mind,  is  as  inexplicable  as  God's  know- 
ing it. 

o 

If  this  does  not  seem  a  real  problem  to  any 
reader,  I  advise  him  to  omit  the  discussion  al- 
together. It  is  likely  to  be  a  real  issue  only  to 
those  trained  to  respect  the  universality  of  the 
law  of  conservation  of  energy,  and  to  whom 
it  is  a  point  of  honor  not  to  abandon  this  posi- 
tion at  any  cost. 

We  are  of  this  loyal  band  (though  here, 
again,  conservation  of  energy  is  as  much  a 
matter  of  faith  as  religion,  as  no  experiment 
has  ever  absolutely  proved  it),  and  we  are  not 
willing  to  allow  our  causal  universe  to  be  shot 
through  with  holes  where  non-material  forces 


THE  NATURE   OF   GOD  AND   OF  MAN   99 

have  brought  material  results  to  pass.  We  are 
confronted  with  the  following  situation  as  re- 

o 

gards  our  own  mental  life,  and  to  a  scientist 
who  loves  above  all  things  a  neat  array  of  well- 
adjusted  facts,  it  is  indeed  a  trying  case.  We 
have  a  perfect  physical  and  nervous  connec- 
tion between  outward  stimuli  and  muscular  or 
nervous  reaction.  The  moth  flies  past  my  eye, 
and  my  eye  winks;  or  in  a  more  complicated 
situation,  the  visual  stimulus  arouses  associated 
brain-cells,  finally  the  motor  area  is  excited, 
and  my  hand  grasps  the  moth.  In  any  case, 
and  no  matter  how  complex  the  experience  be- 
comes, brain-cell  excites  brain-cell,  incoming 
energy  goes  over  into  outgoing,  and  mean- 
while what  is  our  mind  about  ?  What  conceiv- 
able connection  is  there  between  such  nervous 
processes  and  a  mind  ?  The  processes  cannot 
cause  the  mind  and  the  mind  cannot  cause  the 
processes  ;  and  if  they  are  simply  galloping  in 
harness,  why  are  they  doing  it?  Moreover,  if 
we  grant  that  a  mind  at  any  present  instant 
knows  what  is  in  itself,  how  can  we  explain 
its  memories  ?  I  have  not  been  thinking  what 
my  name  is  until  this  moment,  yet  I  had  not 
forgotten  it.  It  was  simply  out  of  my  mind  and 
now  it  is  in  it;  and  we  say,  psychologically 


100  THE   RIGHT  TO  RELIEVE 

speaking,  that  certain  cells  corresponding  to 
niy  name  have  become  stimulated  in  the  speech- 
centres  of  my  brain.  That  such  stimulation 
take  place  we  will  grant,  and  yet  we  might 
analyze  this  nervous  discharge  ever  so  care- 
fully and  still  we  should  find  no  name  in  it, 
and  since  the  name  was  not  in  my  mind  either, 
where  was  it?  What  does  knowing  consist  of 
in  this  mental  realm?  It  is  not  an  explanation 
of  this  question  to  say  anything  at  all  about 
the  brain  or  nervous  system.  We  will  admit  at 
once  that  every  thought,  whether  of  concrete 
objects  or  of  God,  has  a  physical  brain-state 
lumbering  along  beside  it,  that  prayer  as  well 
as  reflex  action  has  nervous  analogues  from 
which  it  does  not  part.  But  the  mystery  of 
the  mind  rushing  on,  clinging  to  or  dropping 
its  memories,  unlocalized,  creating  a  constant 
illusion  that  it  is  affecting  the  constitution  of 
material  things  (though  as  sturdy  scientists  we 
will  not  admit  that  it  does),  is  so  inconceivable, 
that  if  we  were  not  forced  to  acknowledge  it, 
we  certainly  never  should.  There  is  absolutely 
no  room  for  a  mind  in  a  causal  universe,  and 
the  ardent  logician  would  gladly  give  his  up  if 
he  could,  to  prove  his  point.  For  this  reason 
psychology  has  its  incessant  recourse  to  physio- 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD  AND  OF  MAN  101 

logy.  It  cannot  keep  its  balance  in  the  surging 
currents  of  mental  life,  without  standing  on 
the  firm  ground  of  its  physiological  accompani- 
ments. It  first  of  all  tries  to  link  a  mental  fact 
to  a  nervous  one ;  then  with  a  breath  of  relief 
goes  on  talking  about  the  nervous  substructure, 
because  mind  of  itself  is  so  hard  to  manage. 

o 

The  point  of  all  this  digression  on  the  profound 
mystery  of  a  mind  keeping  itself  distinct  from 
other  minds,  and  clinging  to  one  nervous  sys- 
tem with  which  it  has  no  conceivable  connec- 
tion, is  just  this:  while  it  has  been  taken  for 
granted  that  a  healthy  nervous  system  is  a  very 
effective  means  of  allowing;  us  to  come  into 

o 

contact  with  our  neighbors,  it  could  just  as 
well  be  said  that  any  nervous  system  at  all  is 
a  perfect  device  for  keeping  all  our  minds  apart ! 
Because  my  mind  is  weighted  with  a  running 
mate  that  occasionally  goes  astray,  or  too  fast, 
or  too  slow,  and  because  your  team  has  simi- 
lar peculiarities,  —  just  for  this  reason  you  are 
you,  and  I  am  I.  If  all  our  organisms  were  iden- 
tical we  could  approach  a  one-ness  of  sensations, 
of  emotion,  of  sympathy,  such  as  we  can  now 
experience  only  in  what  we  call  our  highest 
moments,  when  we  come  nearest  together  in  a 
common  cause.  As  it  is,  not  only  geographical 


102  THE   RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

difference,  but  every  bias  of  habit  and  heredity, 
grafts  into  our  nervous  make-up  a  disparity 
that  makes  us  able  to  be  of  one  mind  with  but 
few  human  beings.  We  can  say  that  such  va- 
riety is  what  makes  life  interesting,  but  per- 
haps we  shall  see  later  that  the  one-ness  of  har- 
monious minds  does  not  mean  a  real  loss  of 
individuality,  and  that  the  highest  attainment 
of  a  person  is  to  forget  that  he  is  one. 

Now  suppose  a  mind  not  linked  with  any 
nervous  system  (and  we  have  seen  that  theo- 
retically it  is  even  more  reasonable  than  the 
opposite  case),  what  is  to  prevent  its  linking 
itself  with  the  nervous  system  of  any  mind 
that  asks  it  ? 

Everything  that  passes  through  the  human 
mind  is  that  mind's  own  property,  so  far  as 
other  human  minds  are  concerned.  The  im- 
pedimenta of  other  minds  prevent  their  pene- 
trating to  ours.  But  supposing  the  mind  of 
God  mingled  with  the  stream  of  our  own  con- 
sciousness, using  our  tools,  adapting  itself  to 
our  limited  capacities,  and  becoming  for  the 
time  being  part  of  our  mind,  —  is  not  that 
really  what  we  mean  by  communion  with  God, 
and  is  it  any  more  inconceivable  than  com- 
munion with  myself? 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD  AND  OF  MAN  103 

Even  here  God  cannot  force  a  way.  Just  as 
with  an  articulated  message  from  God,  we 
could  always  affirm  that  it  thundered,  that  the 
wind  was  blowing,  that  it  was  the  sound  of 
rushing  water,  so  with  a  God-consciousness 
mingling  with  ours  we  can  say,  we  were  ex- 
cited, it  was  suggestion,  the  result  of  emotional 
fatigue,  etc.,  etc. ;  and  if  we  do  not  hope  for  a 
God,  we  need  not  credit  Him.  We  may  always 
call  all  our  thought  our  own.  Who  shall  judge 
but  ourselves?  But  if  we  will  not  admit  the 
possibility  of  a  God  speaking  to  us,  it  is  equiva- 
lent to  saying,  "  If  there  were  a  God,  by  no 
possibility  through  endless  ages  could  He  speak 
with  the  men  He  has  created";  and  by  such 
a  conclusion  we  make  any  conceivable  God 
weaker  than  we  are  ourselves. 

God  if  He  exists  planned  our  development. 
The  only  reason  we  can  conceive  for  such  a 
creation  is  the  desire  to  communicate  with  us ; 
the  only  way  even  a  God  can  speak  with  man 
is  through  man's  mind,  and  the  duty  remain- 
ing for  a  man  is  that  of  listening. 

It  is  a  difficult  piece  of  work  for  a  child  to 
beodn  to  talk  or  to  understand,  but  he  learns 

O  ' 

because  he  wants  to.  If  he  did  not  want  to, 
he  could  live  his  life  in  silence.  It  is  a  hard 


104  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

matter  at  first  to  distinguish  the  mind  of  God 
from  our  own.  If  we  want  to,  however,  we 
shall  learn  both  to  speak  and  to  understand. 
If  we  do  not  want  to,  we  shall  not  learn ;  and 
in  time,  if  we  are  careful  to  practice  indiffer- 
ence, in  all  probability  God  will  not  trouble  us 
further.  It  is  our  privilege  to  create  such  a 
God  as  we  have  done  in  our  universe,  or  not 
to  do  so,  as  it  was  His  to  create  or  not  create 
us  in  His. 


IV 

THE  DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST 

IF  my  readers  are  at  all  like  the  usual  specula- 
tor on  religious  problems,  they  are  by  this  time 
exceedingly  restive.  Some  one  is  doubtless  say- 
ing, "  What  I  wanted  was  a  conclusive  proof 
that  God  exists  —  all  that  I  have  is  an  even 
chance.  I  am  entitled  to  believe,  if  I  choose, 
what  has  just  fifty  per  cent  of  a  chance  of  be- 
ing a  falsehood,  and  that  is  no  basis  for  a 
faith."  We  can  only  reiterate  two  things.  First, 
you  do  not  want  a  convincing  proof.  A 
thorough  proof  means  that  God  would  be  within 
the  range  of  science  or  logic,  that  is,  a  measur- 
able finite  quantity,  and  hence  no  God.  Second, 
we  are  coming  to  see  that  the  chances  are  more 
than  half  in  favor  of  a  God.  We  have  tried 
to  start  from  the  most  meagre  allowance  of 
faith  and  knowledge  that  any  one  who  had 
enough  intelligence  to  ask  the  question  at  all 
could  have,  but  we  must  now  take  a  wider 
view.  We  are  still  assuming  that  we  want  a 
God,  and  that  we  want  to  know  His  nature 
more  thoroughly.  Are  there  not  degrees  of 


106  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

probability,  which  point  more  decidedly  in  one 
direction  than  another,  even  though  they  do 
not  prove  the  issue  absolutely  ? 

Suppose  that  an  extraordinary  invention  has 
appeared  on  the  market,  and  there  is  some 
doubt  as  to  who  is  its  author.  The  man  who 
could  have  devised  such  a  thing  has  just  died, 
so  that  we  cannot  get  a  direct  answer  from 
him,  and  we  can  only  decide  the  matter  by  pro- 
babilities. A  good  many  scientists  had  been 
working  along  the  same  lines,  and  the  ques- 
tion is,  "Is  this  particular  machine  his  or 
theirs  ? '  Our  decision  must  rest  upon  our  esti- 
mate of  the  invention  and  of  the  man.  If  it 
is  considered  sufficiently  extraordinary  we  say 
the  great  man  must  have  made  it.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  do  not  think  it  is  very  remark- 
able, we  decide  that  the  other  men  may  have 
done  so.  Even  witnesses'  testimony  would  not 
weigh  against  this  decision  by  estimate.  If  the 
invention  is  too  wonderful  for  a  small  man  to 
have  made,  we  will  not  believe  him,  no  matter 
how  often  he  assures  us  that  he  was  its  author ; 
if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  commonplace,  no 
one  is  interested  to  deny  the  authorship  of  any 
one  who  cares  to  claim  it.  Any  one  would  have 
a  right  to  call  us  stubborn  if  we  refused  to 


THE  DIVINITY   OF  CHRIST  107 

admit  that  a  great  inventor  had  probably  been 
the  contriver  of  some  unique  device,  even 
though  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  no  one 

o 

could  prove  it.  It  all  depends  on  whether  we 
consider  the  invention  too  great  to  have  been 
made  by  any  but  the  most  able  scientist,  no 
matter  how  many  lesser  men  may  assert  the 
contrary. 

If,  moreover,  the  invention  was  something 
we  wanted  very  much  and  had  been  looking 
for,  and  if  we  had  reason  to  believe  that  the 
absent  inventor  would  have  had  special  inter- 
est in  this  kind  of  a  thing  more  than  all  others, 
we  should  loyally  feel  it  to  be  much  safer  to 
erect  a  monument  to  him  in  token  of  our  ap- 
preciation, than  to  leave  him  unrecognized  be- 
cause we  could  not  prove  our  point.  Not  only 
the  point  would  not  be  proved,  but  nothing 
could  prove  it.  The  man  is  gone,  his  laboratory 
and  papers  were  burned,  and  voices  from  the 
dead,  angels  in  the  sky,  or  any  cataclysm  one's 
imagination  can  devise  would  not  prove  the 
point  further  than  this :  that  the  thing  bespoke 
the  authorship  of  the  only  man  who  could  have 
made  it. 

We  can  see  at  once  that  most  of  our  ordi- 
nary decisions  in  life  are  not  based  on  proofs 


108  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

at  all,  but  on  likelihood,  plus  inclination,  plus 
a  certain  capacity  in  the  most  able  of  us  to 
tell  at  a  glance  the  significance  of  certain  ear- 
marks of  truth.  We  call  a  man  unreasonable 
or  eccentric  if  he  does  not  accept  the  prob- 
able explanation  of  a  thing,  even  though  he 
may  never  get  access  to  a  proof.  It  is  to  our 
credit  that  we  regard  the  matter  of  our  re- 
ligious life  as  demanding  a  more  serious  treat- 
ment than  the  decision  as  to  who  took  our 
umbrella.  But  this  seriousness  becomes  mis- 
taken, when  we  set  ourselves  to  demand  a 
proof  that  we  do  not  want,  or  refuse  to  accept 
an  evidence  that  we  find  fulfills  every  demand 
that  we  can  honestly  make. 

The  question  of  Christ's  divinity  depends 
essentially  on  the  same  sort  of  evidence;  and 
if  we  are  to  argue  in  the  same  fashion  that  we 
are  obliged  to  in  ordinary  matters,  we  must 
admit  that  the  chances  are  rather  more  than 
half  in  favor  of  His  being  a  special  revela- 
tion. 

But  some  one  may  object  that  in  our  illus- 
tration one  thing  was  taken  for  granted,  that 
in  the  religious  question  is  not  so  certain.  We 
were  then  sure  that  there  had  been  an  in- 
ventor, while  we  are  not  certain  enough  even 


THE  DIVINITY   OF   CHRIST  109 

now  that  God  exists,  to  permit  such  conclu- 
sions as  to  His  probable  handiwork.  Of  course, 
if  we  are  to  progress  in  any  argument,  we 
must,  simply  for  the  sake  of  the  discussion  if 
nothing  more,  consider  a  point  settled  for  the 
time  being,  and  pass  on  to  another.  We  are 
now  convinced  that  it  is  essential  for  life  and 
for  logic  to  believe  something,  to  hold  one  of 
two  opposite  alternatives,  and  we  know  that 
we  have  as  good  a  right,  and  a  reasonable  in- 
clination, to  choose  the  alternative  we  prefer. 
We  will  assume,  then,  in  the  present  chapter 
that  we  have  chosen  to  believe  in  such  a  God 
as  we  have  described,  and  that  the  hypothe- 
sis of  God's  existence  shall  be  considered  as 
firmly  established  as  possible.  Our  concern 
now  is  only  this:  granting  such  a  God,  is 
there  any  reason  to  believe  that  Christ  is  His 
especial  manifestation?  Are  our  chances  here 
only  half  and  half  as  before,  or  has  our  ac- 
ceptance of  the  first  tenet  made  the  second 
more  necessary?  Once  on  the  path  of  one  al- 
ternative, are  we  to  have  an  easier  time  of  it  ? 
It  seems  to  me  decidedly  that  we  are. 
Granting  our  God,  a  Christ  seems  more  highly 
probable  than  otherwise ;  and  granting  a 
Christ,  we  are  equally  driven  to  belief  in  a 


110  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

God.  We  have  granted  our  God,  so  we  must 
try  to  find  the  absolute  reasonableness  of  such 
a  manifestation  of  Himself. 

There  are  two  types  of  difficulty  which  one 
faces  in  considering  this  question.  One  man 
finds  it  impossible  to  conceive  how  a  human 
being  could  exist  with  the  peculiar  connec- 
tion with  God  which  believers  find  in  Christ. 
Others,  granting  the  possibility,  fail  to  find 
evidence  in  Christ  Himself  of  such  a  connec- 
tion. These  difficulties  are  exactly  the  same  in 
character  as  those  which  we  met  in  our  search 
for  evidences  of  God.  Some  of  us  could  not 
conceive  how  such  a  Being  could  exist  at  all^ 
while  others  failed  to  find  convincing  proof 
of  His  existence,  granted  its  conceivability. 
Or,  in  the  words  of  our  illustration,  some  of 
us  find  the  invention  too  astonishing  and  too 
intricate  to  be  real;  while  others  of  us,  ad- 
mitting that  the  stories  of  this  mechanism  are 
correct,  do  not  consider  it  remarkable  enough 
to  point  to  a  very  distinguished  inventor. 

Is  it,  then,  conceivable  that  God  should  at 
some  time  have  taken  complete  possession  of 
a  human  frame,  instead  of  partial  possession  ? 
Can  we  mean  anything  different  from  this 
when  we  say  the  Divinity  of  Christ?  And  if 


THE   DIVINITY   OF   CHRIST  111 

a  man  acts  in  every  way  through  his  life  as 
we  are  bound  to  admit  that  God,  in  our  high- 
est ideal  of  Him,  would  act  in  a  similar  posi- 
tion, are  we  not  forced  to  say  that  he  is  the 
expression  of  God's  own  person?  If  the  per- 
fection of  a  man's  life  would  not  convince  us 
that  he  was  in  a  certain  sense  set  apart  from 
the  rest  of  us  as  a  God-man,  is  there  any  con- 
ceivable trait  of  mind,  body,  estate,  that  would 
offer  sufficient  proof  of  it?  Or  is  our  attitude 
this :  "I  will  grant  that  God  if  He  chose 

o 

might  take  full  possession  of  a  human  frame, 
and  that  if  He  did  so,  I  would  call  such  a  per- 
son Divine  in  character ;  but  no  possible  traits 
of  character  would  convince  me  that  any  man 
had  such  a  nature.  Nothing  conceivable  would 

o 

ever  make  me  think  that  any  man  was  a 
Christ." 

This  position  is  plainly  illogical.  Either  a 
hypothesis  is  alive  or  it  is  dead.  We  are  not 
making  the  possibility  of  God's  expression  of 
Himself  in  human  form  a  live  hypothesis,  un- 
less we  will  accept  some  thinkable  kind  of 
evidence  as  sufficient  to  substantiate  it  one 
way  or  the  other.  Either  I  must  say,  "I  will 
accept  any  man  as  an  entire  expression  of 
God  who  is  perfectly  wise,  or  perfectly  beauti- 


112  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

f  ul,  or  perfectly  good/'  or  admit  any  other 
characteristics,  or  group  of  them,  as  sufficient 
ground  for  acceptance;  or  else  I  must  say, 
"It  is  impossible  that  any  man  could  be  an 
expression  of  God " ;  and  we  have  thereby 
killed  this  hypothesis,  and  must  support 
another  one,  giving  reasons  for  an  opposite 
conviction.  But  we  must  not,  in  our  case,  say 
that  the  Divine  man  is  a  dead  possibility,  be- 
cause we  have  already  admitted  that  if  God 
can  at  any  time,  and  for  the  shortest  duration, 
take  partial  possession  of  a  human  mind,  and 
thereby  of  his  body,  He  can  theoretically 
occupy  the  body  and  be  absolutely  identified 
with  the  mind  of  a  man  throughout  his  whole 
life.  This  is  as  possible  as  that  any  mind  can 
occupy  any  body.  A  Christ  is  then  conceiv- 
able, and  the  only  question  left  is  whether  we 
have  such  a  Christ  or  must  look  for  another. 

In  the  first  place,  do  we  want  a  Christ  at 
all?  If  not,  nothing  obliges  us  to  pursue  the 
subject  further.  Moreover,  would  such  a  God 
as  we  have  formed  for  our  ideal  want  a  Christ  ? 
Is  there  a  high  reasonableness  that,  after  the 
revelations  of  Himself  in  human  minds,  after 
some  special  revelations  through  men  more 
spiritually  gifted  than  others,  after  a  long 


THE   DIVINITY   OF   CHRIST  113 

world-history  where  virtue  had  come  to  gain 
a  certain  value,  after  man  had  groped  for  a 
God  and  many  had  found  Him  with  only  these 
first  means,  —  is  it  reasonable  that  God  should 
say,  "I  will  give  them  myself  not  only  as  a 
Conscience,  as  a  Law,  as  a  World,  as  a  Deity, 
but  as  a  Man  ?  Is  there  anything  more  that  I 
can  do?"  And  is  there  anything  else  think- 
able that  He  could  have  done?  So  far  as  I 
know,  although  many  have  found  the  evidence 
for  what  God  has  done  insufficient  to  prove 
that  He  did  it,  no  one  has  offered  a  suggestion 
as  to  what  would  be  accepted  as  a  proof  of 
His  authorship  if  it  were  produced.  No  one 
who  finds  Christ's  appearance  an  unreasonable 
demonstration  of  a  Deity  has  told  us  what 
would  be  more  reasonable ;  and  until  any  one 
can  do  so,  we  must  accept  what  seems  to  us 
the  most  fit.  That  it  had  seemed  a  reasonable 
expectation  to  some  men  is  certain,  in  that  long 
before  Christ's  birth  the  coming  of  a  Messiah 
was  looked  for.  They  did  not  picture  Him 
exactly  as  He  was.  Because  of  His  very  absence 
they  could  not  know  the  kind  of  a  God  that  He 
declared  His  Father  to  be,  and  hence  could  not 
know  exactly  how  such  a  God  would  express 
Himself.  But  their  conception  of  a  Messiah 


114  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

at  least  kept  pace  with  their  idea  of  a  God, 
and  that  God  would  some  time  appear  on 
earth  they  confidently  hoped.  There  is  per- 
haps no  more  impressive  line  of  figures  in  the 
great  Sistine  ceiling  than  those  seated  groups 
of  shadowed  forms,  quietly  and  solemnly  look- 
ing forward  to  their  hoped-for  Saviour.  These 
figures  are  often  overlooked,  for  the  more 
striking  portrayals  of  the  Creation  and  the 
Fall;  but  there  they  sit,  unconcerned,  with 
the  glory  about  them,  eternally  looking  into 
the  distance  for  the  Messiah  who  shall  be 
born.  That  mighty  painter  who  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  attempt  the  form  of  God  as  well  as  of 
men,  might  have  added  another  picture  in 
which  the  Creator  Himself  should  gaze  past 
His  earlier  work  to  the  great  manifestation  of 
Himself  which  was  to  be,  and  as  much  long- 
ing would  have  been  in  His  expression  for  this 
last  possible  link  between  Himself  and  His 
children,  as  we  see  already  in  the  faces  of 
those  patient  watchers. 

It  is  reasonable,  then,  that  God  should  plan 
such  a  revelation ;  and  since  we  have  already 
decided  that  perfect  knowledge,  beauty  of 
form,  size,  power,  and  all  the  other  attributes 
already  named  are  not  essential  to  our  idea  of 


THE  DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST  115 

God,  it  follows  naturally  that  the  form  His 
incarnation  would  have  to  take  would  be 
simply  perfect  goodness,  nothing  more  and 
nothing  less.  A  man  with  unlimited  know- 
ledge would  impress  us  mightily,  but  not  as 
being  divine.  Such  men  have  currently  been 
supposed  in  league  with  the  Evil  One  rather 
than  with  God,  if  their  wisdom  was  too  ex- 
tensive to  be  canny.  Handsome  men,  long- 
lived  men,  powerful  men,  gifted  men,  in  fact, 
every  sort  of  man  has  existed  or  may  conceiv- 
ably exist  without  impressing  us  as  especially 
related  to  a  God;  but  a  good  man,  and  above 
all  a  perfectly  good  man,  must  give  us  pause. 
Since  this  is  above  all  the  characteristic  we 
demanded  in  God,  since  this,  in  fact,  was  the 
only  aspect  of  the  ordinary  man  that  made 
him  essentially  different  from  the  animals,  we 
should  expect  that  this  would  be  the  para- 
mount feature  of  the  man  in  whom  God  should 
perfectly  express  Himself.  There  have  been 
good  men  always,  there  always  will  be.  The 
only  difference  between  the  divine  man  and 
the  good  man  is  that  one  is  perfectly  good, 
and  the  other  is  not,  —  and  this  is  all  the  differ- 
ence in  the  world. 

Nothing  is  ever  gained  by  suppression  of 


116  THE  RIGHT   TO  BELIEVE 

our  honest  conviction,  and  some  of  us  must 
admit  at  once  that  goodness  does  not  impress 
us  as  very  striking.  We  are  conscious  of  a 
distinct  feeling  of  disappointment  when  we 
think  that  perfection  of  goodness  is  all  that 
we  are  to  find  in  our  Divine  Man.  Certainly 
Christ's  contemporaries  felt  this  disappoint- 
ment, and  many  of  them  refused  to  believe 
that  such  a  simple  affair  as  perfection  of  vir- 
tue was  enough  to  assert  divinity.  With  them 
as  with  us,  however,  there  is  considerable  con- 
fusion when  we  try  to  formulate  what  else  we 
want  if  goodness  is  not  enough.  No  one,  so 
far  as  I  know,  has  been  able  to  state  what 
other  trait  of  character  he  would  wish  added  ; 
but  we  all  have  perhaps  a  vague  desire  for 
tempests  and  earthquakes  rather  than  for  a 
still  small  voice.  This  we  must  admit  is  rather 
childish,  and  a  demand  that  will  not  survive  a 
close  analysis.  Whatever  our  irrational  desire 
for  more  dazzling  characteristics,  we  must  ad- 
mit that,  after  all,  goodness  is  sufficient  unto 
itself,  so  long  as  it  is  perfect.  But  here  rises 
another  objection  :  How  are  we  to  know  that 
Christ  was  perfect  ?  There  have  been  many 
good  men  ;  we  have  known  some  ourselves  in 
whose  characters  we  could  discover  no  flaw, 


THE   DIVINITY   OF   CHRIST  117 

and  yet  neither  we  nor  they  considered  them 
divine. 

Here  I  believe  we  find  the  crux  of  the 
whole  matter.  Good  men  —  men  even  so  good 
that  we  do  not  venture  to  find  any  evil  in 
them  —  are  noticeable  for  the  fact  that  they 
do  not  consider  themselves  perfect.  Far  from 
that,  their  very  goodness  makes  them  sensitive 
to  certain  defects  in  their  own  nature  which 
we  cannot  see,  and  which  perhaps  we  are  too 
dull  to  notice  in  ourselves.  They  do  not  call 
themselves  perfect,  or  if  they  do,  our  enthu- 
siasm for  them  cools,  and  we  consider  that 
their  very  satisfaction  is  a  blemish,  even 
though  it  may  be  the  only  one.  If  we  really 
think  the  matter  through  we  see  that  the  final 
judge  of  a  man's  perfection  of  character  must 
be  himself  after  all.  There  comes  a  certain 
point  of  outward  goodness — of  fulfillment  of 
every  obligation  of  kindness,  generosity,  and 
self-sacrifice  —  where  an  outsider  must  admit 
he  can  point  to  no  duty  unperformed,  no  grace 
of  character  visibly  lacking,  and  only  the  man 
himself  can  know  whether  he  has  really  ex- 
pressed God's  will  entirely  and  is  become  a 
perfect  embodiment  of  divinity.  If  a  man 
makes  such  an  assertion,  and  we  feel  that  he 


118  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

has  no  ri<rht  to  consider  his  life  such  a  stand- 

o 

ard  of  virtue,  we  are  shocked  and  disgusted 
with  him  more  than  we  should  be  if  he  had 
committed  some  more  dangerous  sin.  We  are 
careful  of  our  ideals.  We  resent  a  pretense  of 
virtue  more  than  an  actual  vice,  because  if  our 
standard  becomes  confused,  what  is  our  guide  ? 
With  an  open  sinner  we  know  how  to  deal. 

The  situation  is  this.  When  a  man  says  that 
he  expresses  divine  perfection,  his  statement 
is  either  blasphemous,  insane,  or  it  is  true.  All 
of  these  interpretations  were  put  upon  the  as- 
sumption of  Christ.  When  He  quietly  affirmed 
before  Pilate  and  the  priests  that  He  was  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Blessed,  the  high  priest 
rent  his  clothes  and  asked  what  further  wit- 
ness of  His  blasphemy  was  necessary.  Others 
considered  Him  a  madman,  and  still  others  be- 
lieved His  testimony.  There  seems  to  be  no 
other  course  to  take.  Either  He  spoke  the 
truth,  or  He  did  not ;  and  if  not,  His  assertion 
was  a  voluntary  misstatement,  or  it  arose  from 
an  uncontrollable  aberration  of  mind.  If  they 
did  not  believe  Him,  it  was  more  reasonable 
to  take  this  offense  seriously  than  to  let  it  pass 
with  indifference.  It  would  indeed  be  a  more 
serious  state  of  affairs  than  it  is  in  the  world, 


THE   DIVINITY   OF  CHRIST  119 

if  it  were  considered  a  light  matter  for  a  man 
to  assert  his  absolute  oneness  with  God. 

We  all  consider  Paul  a  good  man,  who  died 
with  the  assurance  that  he  had  fought  the 
good  fight ;  and  yet  Paul  could  never  free  him- 
self from  the  conviction  of  his  own  sin.  Ste- 
phen was  a  good  man,  but  he  died  with  a 
vision  of  Christ  in  glory,  and  not  with  a  reve- 
lation of  himself  as  returning  to  his  native 
sphere.  Good  men  ever  since  the  world  began 
have  lived  and  died  with  a  more  or  less  tri- 
umphant conviction  that  they  have  finished 
the  work  that  was  given  them  to  do,  but  never 
do  we  tolerate  the  assumption  that  they  have 
been  wholly  what  God  would  have  been  in 
their  place ;  and  indeed  such  assumptions  are 
conspicuously  absent  from  the  noblest  char- 
acters. Their  feeling  of  imperfection  is  in  di- 
rect ratio  to  their  spiritual  life,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Christ.  He  used  His  own  name  and 
the  name  of  His  Father  interchangeably,  and 
affirmed  that  no  one  knew  the  real  nature  of 
God  but  Himself  and  those  who  learned  of  the 
Father  through  Him.  Do  we  feel  the  same 
distrust  of  such  an  assumption  that  we  should 
feel  if  Paul  had  said,  "  Come  unto  me,  Paul, 
and  I  will  give  you  eternal  life  "  ?  Should  we 


120  THE   RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

honor  the  noble  martyrdom  of  Stephen  if  he 
had  called  out  to  his  persecutors,  "  Hereafter 
shall  ye  see  Stephen  sitting  on  the  right  hand  of 
power,  and  coming  in  the  clouds  of  Heaven  "  ? 
No,  most  of  us  feel  a  right,  a  fitness  in  Christ's 
making  such  statements,  which  we  deny  to 
the  best  of  good  men.  Or  if  we  do  not  feel 
such  a  right  (and  many  nurtured  in  other 
creeds  doubtless  do  not),  why  do  we  not  ?  Let 
some  one  who  calls  this  man  blasphemous  or 
mad,  instead  of  God-like,  tell  us  what  trait 
He  lacks,  what  fault  He  showed,  what  kind  of 
a  man  God  incarnate  must  be  if  we  are  to  be- 
lieve His  testimony  !  If  Christ  were  the  expres- 
sion of  God,  He  must  not  only  have  known 
it,  but  He  must  necessarily  have  said  so.  We 
believe  the  verdict  of  good  men  on  themselves, 
we  believe  the  testimony  of  a  righteous  wit- 
ness ;  or  if  we  disbelieve,  we  must  produce  a 
reason  for  it,  as  we  should  expect  the  world 
to  give  a  valid  reason  for  disbelieving  us.  We 
have  no  right  to  call  Christ  insane  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  He  made  such  state- 
ments concerning  Himself,  if  His  life  was 
otherwise  normal,  and  if  the  statement  is  not 
in  itself  unthinkable.  We  have  found  that 
such  an  expression  of  God  was  not  only  think- 


THE   DIVINITY   OF   CHRIST  121 

able,  but  to  be  expected.  Moreover,  it  had 
been  expected,  and  we  must  have  some  other 
reason  for  disbelief  when  He  comes,  than  sim- 
ply the  stupendous  nature  of  an  assertion 
which  if  it  were  true  must  be  stupendous,  and 
which  must  be  asserted  by  the  man  Himself. 
On  one  occasion  Christ  seemed  to  deny 
His  own  goodness.  A  man  came  to  Him  say- 
ing, "  Good  master,  what  good  thing  shall 
I  do  that  I  may  have  eternal  life  ? '  thereby 
taking  a  casuistic  view,  as  if  one  good  deed 
added  to  another  would  bring  a  total  that 
should  entitle  the  doer  to  a  suitable  reward.  He 
asked  Christ  as  a  man  who  had  done  enough 
good  deeds  to  enable  Him  to  give  advice,  and 
Christ  repudiated  such  a  view  of  Himself,  and 
refused  to  be  called  good.  His  goodness  con- 
sisted of  His  Father  speaking  through  Him, 
not  of  this,  that,  or  the  other  thing  he  might 
have  done.  But  neither  here  nor  in  any  other 
record  of  Jesus,  do  we  find  a  hint  of  regret 
for  any  of  His  deeds.  There  is  no  feeling  of 
imperfection,  no  longing  for  a  more  complete 
spiritual  life,  —  a  state  of  affairs  unprecedented 
in  the  case  of  any  man  so  sensitive  to  sin  and 
so  simple  in  his  whole  life  as  He.  If  He  spoke 
an  untruth  in  claiming  to  be  one  with  God, 


122  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

the  greatest  prophet  in  the  world  was  mad  or 
a  hypocrite.  Moreover,  He  must  have  been 
mistaken  on  the  most  essential  point  of  all,  — 
His  own  relation  with  the  God  whom  He  was 
interpreting.  Is  it  easier  to  believe  this,  or 
to  believe  that  what  He  said  was  true,  and 
that  the  Messiah  for  whom  the  world  had  been 
looking  had  really  come  ? 

This  is,  however,  not  quite  enough  to  say 
concerning  the  assumption  of  Christ.  Since 
any  expression  of  God  in  the  visible  world 
must  take  on  the  limitations  of  time  and  space, 
it  comes  thereby  within  the  domain  of  history ; 
and  while  that  gives  an  additional  evidence,  it 
brings  an  additional  burden.  So  long  as  an 
acquaintance  with  God  is  simply  a  matter  of 
my  own  experience,  no  one  but  myself  can 
affirm  or  deny  it,  and  I  have  the  advantage 
and  the  disadvantage  of  its  being  unassailable 
by  outside  influence.  If,  however,  this  expres- 
sion of  God  has  become  an  historical  fact, 
I  have  the  advantage  of  its  tangibility,  the 
support  of  many  minds,  but  also  the  diffi- 
culty that  some  one  may  say  the  history  is 
incorrect  or  the  interpretation  has  been  false. 
We  cannot  be  certain  of  history  as  we  can  be 
sure  of  experience;  and  if  any  one  calls  in 


THE   DIVINITY   OF   CHRIST  123 

question  the  data,  the  facts,  the  authenticity 
of  the  record,  we  cannot  answer  in  just  the 
same  manner  that  we  could  for  a  denial  of  the 
laws  of  logic.  We  have  here  vividly  impressed 
upon  us  what  earlier  in  our  discussion  we 
found  it  difficult  to  believe,  namely,  that  a 
God-expression  which  we  can  see  and  touch 
presents  difficulties  for  belief,  that  the  most 
ineffable  idea  of  Him  does  not.  We  thought 
we  wanted  a  God  who  would  appeal  to  us 
through  a  sense  -  experience ;  finally  one  is 
given  to  us,  and  we  are  more  troubled  than  be- 
fore. No  one  was  more  conscious  of  this  than 
Christ.  He  said  Himself,  "  A  prophet  is  with- 
out honor  in  his  own  country "  ;  and  since 
God  by  His  very  human  expression  has  become 
in  a  certain  sense  one  of  our  countrymen,  we 
find  the  same  difficulty  in  accepting  Him  that 
was  found  by  His  own  neighbors.  The  records 
may  be  incorrect,  perhaps  He  did  not  make 
these  assertions  about  Himself,-  -certain  words 
have  been  interpolated  by  His  followers ; 
He  was  not  mad  Himself,  but  His  followers 
were  misguided,  undeveloped,  too  anxious  to 
found  a  new  creed,  et  cetera,  and  what  we 
really  have  left  is  only  the  record  of  another 
good  man  too  highly  prized  by  certain  con- 


124  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

temporaries,  as  He  was  too  little  prized  by 
others. 

All  this  is  the  weakness  to  which  any  his- 
torical record  is  liable,  and  we  must  base  our 
belief,  not  on  the  reliability  of  this  or  that 
manuscript,  on  the  latest  reading  of  this  or 
that  clause,  but  on  the  supreme  reasonable- 
ness of  the  character  as  presented,  and  the 
question  whether  a  nature  of  this  quality  could 
have  been  invented  by  any  one,  much  less  by 
the  humble  followers  with  whom  Christ  began 
His  ministry.  If  we  decide  that  this  nature  is 
too  great  for  human  contrivance,  that  it  really 
must  have  existed,  no  matter  whether  one  man 
or  another  wrote  the  texts ;  if  the  character 
as  pictured  is  a  harmonious  whole  as  it  stands, 
and  if  this  whole  has  a  certain  quality  too 
great  for  other  authors,  we  shall  say  God  was 
its  author,  as  Christ  said  of  Himself.  I  think 
the  criterion  of  the  whole  matter  is,  Do 
we  actually  think  Christ's  nature  as  pre- 
sented, is  very  wonderful?  Do  we  find  it  fits 
in  so  well  with  our  conception  of  God  that  it 
is  positively  easier  for  us  to  believe  His  asser- 
tions as  they  stand,  than  to  question  their 
authenticity?  Ease  of  one  alternative  or  the 
other  is  after  all  our  usual  guide.  The  sun 


THE   DIVINITY   OF   CHRIST  125 

apparently  moves  around  the  earth,  and  that 
visible  course  seems  to  some  minds  a  more 
conclusive  argument  for  such  a  path  than  any- 
thing we  can  say  to  the  contrary.  We,  on  the 
other  hand,  have  so  many  correlated  facts  for 
the  other  hypothesis,  that  it  is  easier  to  deny 
the  evidence  of  our  eyes  than  to  deny  these 
facts.  The  difference  between  the  two  sides 
is  that  one  puts  a  higher  valuation  on  one  line 
of  evidence  than  the  other.  All  of  us  have 
certain  demands  that  must  be  satisfied  in  any 
argument,  and  we  should  prefer  to  call  a 
matter  unexplained,  than  to  accept  an  expla- 
nation that  left  this  demand  unsettled.  Sup- 
pose we  return  to  the  illustration  of  the  in- 
vention. Some  one  finds  in  my  possession  a 
perfectly  constructed  flying-machine,  which  I 
assure  him  I  made  myself.  Three  comments 
are  open  to  him  :  he  may  say,  "  I  believe  it," 
or  "  I  don't  believe  it,"  or  "  What  of  it ! " 
That  is,  either  he  accepts  it,  or  he  does  not 
accept  it,  or  he  is  indifferent  to  the  whole 
matter.  If  he  does  not  think  it  very  extraor- 
dinary, he  may  believe  that  I  was  the  con- 
structor. But  in  proportion  as  he  realizes  its 
remarkable  perfection,  and  in  proportion  as 
he  knows  me,  he  will  become  more  and  more 


126  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

incredulous,  and  he  will  end  by  saying  that  it 
is  evident  that  some  one  who  knows  more  of 
mechanics  than  I  do  must  have  been  its  cre- 
ator. But  I  assure  him  that  I  must  have  done 
it.  Any  one  can  tell  him  that  no  one  else  has 
been  on  the  premises ;  it  is  not  so  remarkable 
as  to  be  outside  my  powers,  and  I  may  be 
even  deluded  into  believing  what  I  say.  But 
if  he  is  sufficiently  convinced  that  the  machine 
is  a  wonderful  one,  he  will  answer,  "  I  do  not 
know  who  made  it ;  its  presence  here  is  mys- 
terious, and  you  think  you  are  telling  the 
truth.  But  I  know  you  too  well.  You  are 
absolutely  incapable  of  making  a  flying-ma- 
chine, and  it  is  easier  for  me  to  believe  that 
it  came  from  any  other  source  in  the  world, 
than  that  you  were  the  inventor  or  the  con- 
structor." 

It  is  always  open  to  a  man  to  be  unim- 
pressed with  anything,  however  unusual  it 
may  be.  A  man  has  the  right  to  blink  indiffer- 
ently at  a  whole  galaxy  of  flying-machines 
careering  through  the  landscape,  and  refuse 
to  consider  the  matter  worth  a  second  look  ; 
but  we  at  least  are  not  of  this  class.  Either 
we  are  so  struck  with  the  sublimity  of  Christ's 
character,  and  His  absolute  satisfactoriness  as 


THE   DIVINITY  OF   CHRIST  127 

a  revelation  of  God's  nature,  that  to  believe 
in  Him  seems  easier  than  to  credit  His  crea- 
tion to  a  few  uneducated  fishermen,  or  even 
to  a  great  theologian ;  or  we  are  not  so 
impressed,  in  which  case  the  latter  possibility 
seems  more  reasonable. 

Now,  provided  that  we  can  detect  no  flaw  in 
Christ's  character,  and  that  we  cannot  suggest 
any  virtue  or  mark  of  nobility  which  we  would 
add  to  make  it  our  ideal,  we  must  admit  that  it 
is  not  alone  that  we  are  not  impressed  with 
Christ's  goodness,  but  that  we  are  not  impressed 
very  mightily  with  goodness  in  general  !  Un- 
less we  can  imagine  something  higher  that  we 
want,  we  must  confess  that  this  is  the  highest, 
but  that  the  highest  is  no  great  matter  after 
all.  If  we  say  this,  we  are  striking  our  blow  at 
God's  character,  and  not  alone  at  Christ's  ;  and 
this  is  a  very  serious  dilemma  into  which  we 
have  allowed  ourselves  to  drift.  A  thing  must 
be  the  best  if  it  is  all  that  we  can  conceivably 
want ;  and  if  we  have  the  best  and  do  not 
want  it,  we  are  like  aliens  who  have  wan- 
dered into  Paradise,  and  find  it  not  to  their 
taste. 

There  was  a  parable  spoken  once  about  the 
lord  of  a  vineyard  who   sent  messengers  to 


128  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

inspect  his  domain  and  collect  the  fruit  of 
it.  The  messengers  were  badly  treated,  and  he 
said,  "  I  will  send  my  son !  surely  they  will 
reverence  him."  They  did  not  reverence  the 
son,  and  why  not?  Because  they  did  not 
reverence  the  father. 

The  case  would  have  been  different  if  they 
had  reverenced  the  father,  and  yet  had  doubted 
whether  this  messenger  were  the  son  as  he 
announced  himself  to  be.  They  would  have 
respected  any  one  from  the  lord  of  the  vine- 
yard, whether  he  were  his  son  or  not;  and 
though  the  son  would  have  regretted  their 
doubt  of  him,  yet  if  their  love  for  his  father 
were  great,  he  would  not  have  been  too  hard 
on  their  disrespect.  Since  the  Son  of  Man 
appeared  in  a  world  of  time  and  sense,  and 
since  religion  must  not  depend  on  such  an 
expression,  He  acknowledges  that  the  convic- 
tion of  God  is  the  most  essential.  A  knowledge 
of  Christ  depends  on  historical  information.  If 
that  were  all-important,  the  uninformed,  the 
misinformed,  and  those  who  were  born  too 
soon,  would  be  irretrievably  robbed  of  the 
necessity  of  their  souls,  and  surely  that  could 
not  be  just.  But  even  if  the  unbelieving 
workers  in  the  vineyard  who  still  loved  the 


THE   DIVINITY   OF   CHRIST  129 

lord  were  to  be  forgiven  for  their  doubt,  were 
they  losing  anything  by  it  ? 

Was  Christ's  coming  simply  another  revela- 
tion, or  a  different  one?  Is  there  a  progression 
in  God's  expression  of  Himself,  so  that  if  one 
loses  the  last,  one  loses  not  only  a  part,  but 
the  greatest  ?  Moreover,  is  there  a  satisfaction 

to  be  derived  from  a  religion  with  Christ  in 

& 

it,  that  one  cannot  find  in  a  religion  without 
Him  ?  To  this  latter  question  at  least  there 
can  hardly  be  two  answers.  The  Christian 
religion  has  stood  for  a  joyous  view  of  life,  a 
serenity  of  disposition,  as  no  other  creed  has 
ever  done.  The  Jewish  religion,  from  which  it 
sprang,  was  dignified,  noble,  and  possessed  of 
a  high  imaginative  fire  which  the  Christian 
also  appropriates  to  himself.  But  its  greatest 
teachers  were  always  looking  forward  with  a 
passionate  eagerness  to  the  fuller  revelation 
that  was  to  be.  Their  God  was  just  and  terrible. 
His  vengeance  on  their  sins  was  more  real 
than  His  love,  and  there  was  a  division  of 
feeling  among  themselves  as  to  immortality. 
Their  ideal  of  righteousness  was  stern,  lofty, 
and  unattainable  ;  but  that  the  sorrowful  man 
should  be  comforted,  or  the  solitary  man  find 
a  friend  in  God,  hardly  crossed  their  minds. 


130  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

They  needed  comfort  and  companionship  as 
much  as  any  other  men,  but  when,  like  Job, 
they  lifted  up  their  voices  to  ask  why  the 
world  should  be  as  it  is,  they  were  too  over- 
come by  the  inscrutability  of  Jehovah  to  hope 
to  find  an  answer.  Can  we  not  imagine  God 

o 

as  saying,  "  Can  they  not  see  what  I  am  ? 
Can  they  not  read  my  tenderness  as  well  as 
my  anger?'  And  to  answer  the  eternal  ques- 
tion for  whose  answer  the  best  men  of  all 
ages  had  been  searching,  Jehovah  humbled 
Himself,  to  show  them  that  the  important 
element  of  His  nature  was  not  His  power, 
which  men  could  not  achieve,  but  His  good- 
ness, which  they  might. 

It  is  nothing  against  His  revelation,  that 
other  men  had  had  visions  of  the  same  ideal. 
In  fact,  there  seems  a  special  fitness  that  it 
should  have  come  to  pass  after  the  mighty 
Jewish  prophets  and  those  Greek  giants  of 
thought  had  done  their  best  but  had  missed 
the  whole.  No  one  who  reads  of  the  lives  of 
Plato  and  Socrates,  their  noble  ideals,  their 
glimpses  of  a  divine  love,  can  fail  to  be  struck 
with  their  nearness  to  the  Christian  religion. 

o 

Far  from  weakening  the  Christian  message 
when  it  conies,  it  is  an  added  support  to  it 


THE   DIVINITY  OF   CHRIST  131 

that  the  highest  strivings  of  the  human  mind 
all  pointed  in  one  direction,  and  that  Christ 
came  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill.  Who  would 
believe  in  a  religion  that  ran  counter  to  the 
ideals  of  all  good  men  who  had  lived  before, 
and  what  more  could  a  God  do  than  quietly 
to  set  His  seal  upon  the  best,  and  live  it 
before  our  eyes  ? 

Man  had  hoped  before  that  God  understood 
him,  he  had  wondered  if  Pie  did,  and  now  he 
finds  that  it  is  an  assured  fact.  If  there  is  to 
be  an  assurance  of  God's  absolute  understand- 
ing of  every  man,  He  must  have  experienced 
triumphantly  all  that  a  man  must  face.  He 
must  be  poor,  for  most  men  are  poor ;  He  must 
live  an  obscure  life  with  no  striking  opportu- 
nities, for  most  men  live  such  a  life.  He  must 
be  unappreciated  and  misunderstood,  He  must 
suffer  as  only  a  few  men  are  called  upon  to 
suffer,  and  He  must  even  pass  through  that 
horror  which  perhaps  all  men  with  a  great 
mission  have  faced,  when  they  have  almost 
doubted  themselves  and  have  called  out  as 
Christ  did,  "  My  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken 
me  ? '  Some  men  are  burdened  with  such  a 
temperament  that  they  cannot  see  God  clearly, 
no  matter  how  they  try;  and  even  they  have 


132  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

a  sympathizer  in  Christ,  who  passed  through 
the  same  darkness. 

Is  it  possible  that  there  exists  any  one  who 
would  not  be  comforted  to  feel  that  the  God 
of  the  whole  earth  knew  as  a  man  knows,  his 
sorrow  over  the  death  of  a  friend,  his  discour- 
agement over  unappreciated  work,  his  restive- 
ness  in  a  youth  of  forced  inactivity,  his  solitude 
amid  men  of  another  temper?  That  this  is 
what  men  do  want  is  shown  plainly  enough 
by  the  comfort  that  believers  get  from  their 
convictions,  and  that  it  is  what  men  wanted 
from  all  time,  one  has  only  to  read  the  fifty- 
third  chapter  of  Isaiah  to  see. 

To  any  who  say,  "You  believe  this  only 
because  you  want  to,"  we  can  answer  boldly, 
"  You  believe  the  opposite  because  you  want 
to."  If  they  deny  this,  and  say,  "  We  do  not 
believe  the  opposite  because  we  want  to,  but 
because  we  cannot  do  otherwise;  we  would 
gladly  share  your  richer  faith,  but  we  are  un- 
able to,"  the  matter  stands  differently.  There 
was  a  time  when  John  the  Baptist,  that  voice 
crying  in  the  wilderness  that  the  Messiah  had 
come,  doubted  the  authenticity  of  Christ's 
mission.  He  had  seen  the  divine  character  of 
Christ  before  any  one  else  had  seen  it,  and  had 


THE   DIVINITY   OF  CHRIST  133 

affirmed  it  when  others  doubted.  He  had  been 
imprisoned  for  his  passionate  preaching,  and 
now  in  the  gloom  of  prison  he  sends  messen- 
gers to  Christ  and  says,  "  Art  thou  He  that 
should  come,  or  do  we  look  for  another?' 
There  is  perhaps  not  a  more  humanly  pathetic 
touch  in  the  whole  Bible  than  this.  The  doubt 
was  so  plainly  the  result  of  fatigue  and  of 
disappointment ;  or  perhaps,  more  than  all,  it 
was  the  reaction  that  comes  to  every  intense 
nature  after  declaring  itself ;  the  tendency  to 
doubt  what  it  has  most  vehemently  believed. 
The  situation  is  so  natural,  so  human,  and  the 
nobility  of  both  characters  is  so  touching. 
John  doubted  the  reality  of  Christ's  mission, 
and  whom  did  he  ask  to  dissipate  his  doubt, 
but  Christ  Himself?  He  knew  no  other  way 
to  turn  for  an  answer.  And  Christ  understood 
him  so  perfectly  that  He  entered  into  no  dis- 
cussion of  the  matter.  He  sent  word  to  the 
prisoner  that  the  same  works  were  being  per- 
formed, it  was  all  just  as  it  was  before,  only 
he  in  prison  had  forgotten  it.  Who  of  us  be- 
lieves that  John  was  not  reassured?  Who  of 
us  believes  that  real  faith  depends  on  the  ups 
and  downs  of  emotional  buoyancy? 

The  feeling  of  certainty  is  a  detachable  one. 


134  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

Some  of  us  are  without  it  altogether,  and, 
though  we  might  stake  our  lives  on  an  issue, 
would  never  feel  certain  of  it ;  while  others  of 
us  always  feel  certain  of  one  thing  or  its  op- 
posite, even  where  our  reason  tells  us  we  have 
no  right  to  do  so.  We  cannot  all  feel  certainty 
to  the  same  degree,  and  we  must  not  demand 
it  of  ourselves.  But  any  man,  no  matter  how 
unfortunate  his  emotional  endowment,  if  he 
persistently  asked  Christ  for  the  removal  of 
his  doubt,  as  John  did,  while  he  might  never 
attain  the  triumphant  faith  which  is  given  to 
more  sanguine  minds,  might  feel  that  by  this 
very  lack  he  was  entering  more  deeply  into 
the  greatest  of  human  experiences,  —  that  long- 
ing which  hopes  where  it  sees  nothing.  Per- 
haps he  has  a  deeper  vision  of  Christ's  own 
sorrow,  and  by  his  own  blindness  understands 
Christ's  last  agony,  better  than  we. 

Does  this  make  God  too  common?  If  He 
has  been  human,  and  has  lived  on  earth  in 
complete  control  of  one  nature,  instead  of  in 
fragmentary  control  of  our  several  ones,  do 
we  find  our  Ideal  of  a  great  God  has  suffered  ? 
I  think  not.  It  is  noticeable  in  every-day  life, 
that  the  nobler  the  character,  the  simpler  it 
becomes ;  and  its  simplicity,  far  from  detract- 


THE   DIVINITY   OF   CHRIST  135 

ing  from  its  grandeur,  accents  it.  We  are 
embarrassed  by  the  chief  of  police,  and  we 
quail  before  a  "  sales-lady/'  but  we  are  at  home 
immediately  with  a  great  man.  That  such  a 
man  dresses  as  other  men  do,  that  he  eats  and 
sleeps,  we  sometimes  think  would  shock  us, 
would  make  him  seem  too  small ;  but  in  reality 
it  does  nothing  of  the  kind.  Clothes,  even 
mean  clothes,  cannot  belittle  a  great  spirit; 
they  rather  take  on  a  certain  grandeur  from 
the  form  which  carries  them. 

If  we  are  disturbed  by  such  simplicity,  if 
we  are  more  impressed  by  strangeness  and 
a  wild  eye,  by  an  ermine  robe  or  a  prancing 
steed,  it  bespeaks  our  own  littleness.  Christ 
Himself  asked  the  same  question  of  those  who 
were  apparently  startled  by  His  normality; 
"  What  went  ye  out  for  to  see?  A  reed  shaken 
by  the  wind,  or  a  man  clothed  in  soft  rai- 
ment ? '  And  elsewhere  He  comments  on  such 
people,  and  says  how  impossible  they  were  to 
satisfy.  They,  like  some  of  us,  were  offended 
when  a  man  deported  himself  like  John,  and 
in  the  vehemence  of  his  enthusiasm  laid  him- 
self open  to  the  charge  of  madness.  And 
again,  when  one  lived  simply  and  normally 
•with  his  fellow  men,  as  did  Christ,  they  found 


136  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

Him  too  natural  for  their  taste.  They,  like 
some  of  us,  did  not  know  what  they  wanted, 
and  were  afraid  that  neither  normality  nor 
abnormality  befitted  God's  expression.  Since, 
however,  most  men,  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  word,  are  normal,  Christ  must  be  so  too, 
in  every  respect  but  the  unprecedented  char- 
acter of  His  Spirit. 

He  Himself  put  no  great  emphasis  on  His 
miracles.  He  told  His  disciples  that  they  would 
work  greater  wonders  than  He  had  done,  and 
He  admitted  that  the  Pharisees  and  their 
children  cast  out  devils  as  well  as  He.  Certain 
wonder  works  had  been  common  through  all 
history,  —  sometimes  performed  by  good  men, 
and  sometimes  by  bad.  Aaron  cast  his  rod 
before  Pharaoh  and  it  became  a  serpent; 
Pharaoh's  magicians  did  as  much,  and  we  can 
hardly  blame  the  monarch  that  he  was  not 
impressed.  Sometimes  a  prophet  performed 
a  mighty  deed,  and  sometimes  a  witch.  The 
situation  is  in  nowise  different  to-day,  and  we 
are  quite  right  when  we  refuse  to  accept  an 
unusual  power  of  this  kind  as  a  divine  mani- 
festation. Christ  placed  no  more  emphasis  upon 
such  phenomena  than  any  man  need  do  to-day. 
He  never  called  them  miracles,  in  the  sense 


THE   DIVINITY   OF  CHRIST  137 

that  they  transcended  any  natural  law;  and 
no  one  is  obliged  to,  or  indeed  should  have  any 
disposition  so  to  do.  If  one  does,  in  fact,  it 
seems  to  put  an  emphasis  upon  them  which 
they  do  not  deserve,  and  diverts  the  attention 
from  the  more  important  traits  of  His  charac- 
ter. It  obliges  us  to  consider  as  divine  mes- 
sengers ah1  who  perform  the  same  acts,  instead 
of  seeing  God  in  those  who  reflect  His  charac- 
ter. We  should  be  in  sorry  case  if  all  who 
healed  the  sick,  noble  as  that  calling  may  be, 
must  be  accepted  as  nearer  the  Deity  than 
those  who  do  not. 

It  is  sometimes  urged  that  Christ  called 
Himself  the  Son  of  Man  more  than  He  did  the 
Son  of  God,  and  that  He  meant  thereby  that 
His  nature  must  not  be  over-rated.  But  it 
seems  rather  to  point  in  the  other  direction. 
Why  should  any  human  being  emphasize  the 
fact  that  he  is  a  son  of  man  ?  What  else 
should  he  be  ?  Surely  nothing  could  be  more 
meaningless  than  that  a  man,  who  is  obviously 
a  son  of  man,  should  say  so.  The  only  point 
in  such  reiteration  of  His  kinship  with  man  is 
that  He  felt  His  kinship  with  God  as  so  much 
more  striking,  more  apparent,  that  if  anything 
were  likely  to  be  forgotten,  it  would  be  His 


138  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

human  nature.  His  mission  was  not  to  impress 
man  over  again,  that  God  was  God,  and  that 
man  was  man.  That  the  world  knew  already. 
His  message  was  that  God  could  be  a  man, 
and  that  men  might  be  divine.  He  came  to 
tell  us  not  so  much  that  He  was  the  Son  of 
God  as  that  we  are  sons  of  God,  and  for  that 
reason  He  calls  Himself  the  Son  of  Man  and 
us  the  sous  of  God. 

Does  not  this  assertion  carry  many  other 
things  with  it?  Can  we  even  ask  whether  we 
are  immortal  or  not,  after  such  a  revelation  ? 
Has  God  gone  through  this  long  period  of 
development  to  make  us,  only  to  lose  us 
again  ?  Can  any  nature  that  has  linked  itself 
with  the  Divine  be  lost,  unless  God  Himself  is 
finite?  As  to  the  immortality  of  those  who 
have  lost  connection  with  Divinity  what  shall 
we  say  ?  Do  they  want  immortality,  or  do 
they  prefer  to  be  without  it  ?  Here  is  a  field 
into  which  I  cannot  enter  from  lack  of  testi- 
mony. In  my  experience,  just  so  far  as  people 
have  been  irreligious  they  have  not  been 
interested  in  their  own  eternal  Nature.  An 
existence  of  the  sort  they  have  at  present, 
they  could  not  have,  and  do  not  want.  Neither 
does  existence  of  any  other  kind,  with  or  with- 


THE   DIVINITY   OF   CHRIST  139 

out  a  God,  appeal  to  them.  Whether  such  a 
state  of  mind  can  eventually  effect  its  own 
suicide,  its  own  annihilation,  who  shall  say? 
Logically,  if  a  man  may  have  faith,  other 
things  being  equal,  in  what  he  hopes  for,  we 
may  leave  such  a  possibility  to  those  who  so 
hope. 

To  those  whose  imaginations  are  fascinated 
and  tormented  by  the  thought  of  other  worlds 
and  systems  extending  to  the  farthest  fixed 
star  and  beyond,  the  conviction  that  the  God 
of  them  all  lived  thirty-three  years  of  His 
eternity  on  this  dust  that  we  call  our  earth,  is 
an  awful  but  an  unspeakable  comfort.  Only 
thus  can  they  face  the  universe  with  courage. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF   EVIL 

IT  will  seem  an  astonishing  statement  to 
those  whose  minds  are  burdened  with  the 
misery  of  this  world,  with  its  crime,  its  inno- 
cent suffering,  and  sudden  death,  to  say  that 
after  all  we  have  what  we  want !  They  will 
protest,  "We  do  not  want  the  innocent  to 
suffer,  we  do  not  want  man  to  sin,  we  do  not 
want  to  die,"  and  we  can  only  answer  as  em- 
phatically, "  Yes,  you  do." 

This  may  seem  little  less  than  madness,  but 
we  must  carefully  analyze  this  situation  as  we 
have  the  others.  We  must  picture  our  world 
without  punishment  falling  on  innocent  as 
well  as  guilty,  without  the  possibility  of  sin, 
and  without  death,  and  see  if  such  a  world 
is  one  in  which  we  should  care  to  live.  Our 
view  must  be  a  broad  one.  It  is  not  a  case  for 
complaining  of  individual  instances.  We  can- 
not point  to  this  case  where  a  child  was 
injured  by  a  drunken  father,  or  to  that  where 
an  only  son  was  killed  in  war,  or  to  another 
where  a  moral  weakness  has  been  discovered 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  EVIL  141 

in  a  man  hitherto  supposed  upright.  We  must 
investigate  principles  instead.  If  we  refuse  to 
admit  these  injustices  and  weaknesses  as  har- 
monizing with  an  idea  of  a  just  God,  do  we 
mean  by  that,  that  parents  should  not  have 
any  real  responsibility  over  their  children,  and 
that  society  should  not  have  the  capacity  to 
kill  its  members,  or  to  over-tempt  them,  if 
society  so  chooses?  That  society  does  so 
choose  and  so  act  is  an  evidence  that  the 
world  in  general  is  getting  what  it  wants, 
granted  that  some  of  its  own  by-products  are 
bitter  even  to  itself. 

If  we  admit,  then,  that  the  world  in  gen- 
eral is  suited  with  its  lot  (otherwise  it  would 
change  it  in  certain  important  respects),  is  it 
possible  for  the  individual  in  such  a  world 
ever  to  be  happy  ?  Is  there  any  connection 
whatever  between  the  individual  and  the  over- 
individual  will  of  society  ?  Must  we  all  partake 
of  one  another's  desires  and  achievements, 
of  one  another's  virtues,  and  one  another's 
sins  ? 

It  would  certainly  seem  that  there  is  such  a 
connection,  and  that  the  world  was  planned 
to  run  on  the  basis  of  each  personality  forget- 
ting itself  in  the  greater  whole.  Because  we 


142  THE  RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

do  not  so  forget  ourselves,  and  because  we 
insist  instead  on  a  certain  separateness  instead 
of  brotherhood,  result  all  the  hitches,  the 
differences,  the  disasters  which  we  deplore. 
Yet  here  as  always  we  are  illogical.  If  we 
really  want  this  isolated  personality,  why  do 
we  regret  its  normal  consequence  ?  If  we  do 
not  want  this  isolation,  but  a  community  of 
interest  with  other  natures  as  well  as  with  our 
own,  why  do  we  not  live  it  ?  That  some  of  us 
do  and  some  of  us  do  not,  illustrates  the  con- 
fusion that  always  results  when  a  house  is 
divided  against  itself. 

It  may  seem  at  first  as  if  we  were  con- 
tradicting what  we  have  already  said  about 
personality.  We  have  been  insisting  that  we 
were  created  that  we  might  each  of  us  be  a 
separate  addition  to  the  world.  Each  of  us  is 
being  trained  to  be  a  companion  of  God,  and 
as  such  we  are  not  God,  and  we  are  not 
each  other,  but  always  very  definitely  ourselves. 
But  this  truth  like  many  others  has  expanded 
under  our  scrutiny,  and  we  are  forced  to  ask 
the  question,  "  Am  I  really  most  myself  when 
I  am  most  conscious  of  it  ?  Am  I  not  really 
more  of  a  person  when  I  have  apparently  lost 
my  identity  altogether  in  a  cause,  or  in  an 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  EVIL  143 

experience  of  aesthetic  ecstasy,  or  in  religious 
communion?  Is  Self-Consciousness  desirable, 
or  is  it  to  be  gained  only  to  forget  ? '  We  can 
illustrate  this  question  and  its  answer,  entirely 
within  the  limits  of  a  single  person's  experi- 
ence. To  begin  with,  we  all  have  had  difficulty 
in  learning  to  manage  our  own  body.  We 
could  not  walk  without  thinking,  "  now  this 
leg  and  this  arm  so,  now  balance  until  the 
others  can  be  brought  into  position."  We 
learned  our  language  in  the  same  way,  and 
every  time  we  study  a  new  one  we  go  through 
the  same  painful  process  :  "  I  must  sound  gut- 
turals so,  and  this  must  be  nasal  and  that 
must  be  sibilant"  ;  and  all  our  muscles  and 
ideas  are  as  separate  as  possible,  only  to  be 
forced  into  harness  with  the  greatest  difficulty. 
When  we  are  learning  more  complex  affairs, 
the  separation  of  our  organism  is  even  more 
apparent.  To  play  this  piece  on  the  piano  re- 
quires a  right  hand  in  one  melody,  and  with 
a  three-beat  rhythm,  a  left  hand  in  another 
melody  with  a  two-beat  rhythm;  one  foot  stays 
on  the  loud  pedal  for  periods  in  no  way 
related  to  either  rhythm,  or  to  the  left  foot, 
which  presses  the  soft  pedal  with  discretion. 
As  if  this  were  not  enough,  one  melody  must 


144  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

sometimes  come  to  the  front  and  then  the 
other  ;  your  fourth  finger  cannot  bring  out  as 
much  tone  as  your  third,  and  must  be  forced 
to,  and  your  little  finger  must  diverge  from 
your  thumb  enough  to  reach  to  or  surpass  an 
octave.  You  might  feel  after  such  an  exercise 
of  your  powers,  "  Now  I  am  really  a  man  ! 
I  can  have  hand,  arm,  finger,  foot,  melody, 
rhythm-consciousness  all  at  once."  Each  of 
these  organs  or  ideas  might  plume  itself  on 
living  unto  itself,  and  the  thumb  for  instance 
rejoice  that  it  was  as  consciously  a  factor  in 
the  process  as  the  melody,  or  the  emotion, 
which  the  whole  piece  expressed.  The  fact  of 
the  matter  is,  of  course,  that  this  period  of  the 
separateness  of  all  the  component  parts  of  the 
playing  process  is  very  fatiguing  and  unsatis- 
factory, and  until  a  person  has  got  beyond 
it,  and  has  felt  the  emotion  but  forgotten 
his  thumb,  he  can  hardly  be  said  to  play  the 
piano.  Or,  if  we  could  impersonate  this  little 
member,  we  might  say  to  it,  "It  is  all  very 
well  for  you  to  think  of  yourself,  and  say 
you  are  as  important  a  part  of  the  piece  as 
anything  else.  So  you  are;  but  until  you  for- 
get it,  and  let  the  player  forget  it,  there  is  not 
any  piece  at  all ! ' 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   EVIL  145 

Even  the  performer  may  be  a  little  bewil- 
dered at  the  discovery  that  when  he  was  the 
most  conscious  of  himself  in  all  his  members 
he  was  a  failure,  and  no  person  at  all,  and 
only  when  he  forgot  that  he  was  any  one  and 
lost  himself  in  his  interest,  did  he  find  that  he 
was  an  artist,  —  but  such  is  the  case.  The  real 
personality  in  any  situation  is  the  man  who 
f  cruets  that  he  is  one,  as  much  as  is  consistent 

O  ' 

with  other  men  doing  the  same.  And  our  re- 
spect for  his  character  dwindles  if  we  realize 
more  and  more  that  a  studied  self-conscious- 
ness directs  all  his  activities. 

We  must  admit,  then,  that  even  within  the 
individual  character,  the  different  activities, 
while  they  are  acquired  as  separate  affairs 
become  useful  only  as  they  lose  that  separate 
identity,  and  allow  themselves  to  be  forgotten. 
And,  moreover,  the  combination  of  them  all 
which  makes  up  what  we  call  our  separate  per- 
sonality, only  comes  to  its  fullest  realization 
when  it  can  lose  itself  in  an  interest,  or  if  it 
does  not  possess  such  a  capacity  in  every  direc- 
tion, it  is  only  really  strong  and  powerful  in  the 
lines  where  it  can  so  do.  If  I  have  not  got  be- 
yond the  separate  foot  and  finger  stage  at  the 
piano,  yet  can  swim  with  no  thought  beside 


146  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

the  idea  of  the  boat  I  am  heading  for,  then 
I  am  a  swimmer,  but  I  am  no  player.  If  when 
I  say  a  prayer  I  am  conscious  of  a  great 
many  disconnected  ideas,  that  I  am  in  an  un- 
comfortable position,  and  that  I  wonder  why 
I  am  doing  it,  whereas  it  is  enough  simply  to 
hear  dance-music  at  a  party,  to  go  through 
the  necessary  movements,  then  I  am  a  dancer, 
but  I  cannot  pray.  Where  I  am  so  conscious 
of  the  details  of  technique  that  each  one 
stands  by  itself,  I  am  not  as  yet  a  success  ; 
but  where  I  have  mastered  the  technique 
enough  to  forget  it,  I  am  a  master. 

All  that  we  have  said  about  the  relation  of 
a  person  to  his  work  or  to  his  art  must  be  said 
with  equal  emphasis  about  persons  in  their 
relations  to  one  another.  If  we  all  of  us  continue 
to  feel  that  we  are  separate  affairs  (for  we 
must  begin  this  way,  just  as  each  muscle  must 
acquire  its  own  local  sign),  and  if  we  do  not 
lose  our  own  separate  entity  in  the  life  of  the 
whole,  we  are  not  artists  at  living.  This  sep- 
arateness  of  aim  makes  trouble  in  the  world, 
because  society  at  large  is  made,  just  as  each 
bodily  organism  is  made,  that  the  whole  should 
work  together,  and  that  only  in  so  doing 
should  it  live  a  complete  life.  Continual 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  EVIL  147 

thought  on  one  detail  of  the  whole  social 
person  makes  a  hitch  in  proceedings,  just  as 
the  thought,  "How  are  my  lips  moving  as  I 
talk  ? '  will  dampen  the  spirits  of  any  conver- 
sationalist, no  matter  how  well  his  lips  may 
function  if  let  alone.  Moreover,  this  life  of 
common  personality  is  not  forced  upon  us. 
We  like  it.  The  hardest  thing  for  most  people 
to  bear  is  complete  isolation.  They  would 
rather  be  over-worked,  be  too  important  to 
their  family  and  neighborhood,  than  feel  that 
their  opinion  is  of  no  consequence  to  any  one, 
and  that  they  can  neither  help  nor  hinder, 
nor  be  so  influenced  themselves,  by  any  one  in 
the  world. 

If  the  matter  had  been  laid  before  us,  at 
the  creation  of  the  world,  how  should  we  have 
answered  the  following  questions?  Shall  we 
allow  one  man  to  influence  another  man  by 
speech,  by  action,  by  physical  heredity  ?  Shall 
we  allow  one  to  influence  another  for  evil  as 
well  as  for  good  ?  Shall  we  make  the  conse- 
quences of  sin  always  fall  in  exact  measure 
on  the  head  of  the  criminal  and  on  no  one 
else  ?  Shall  we  always  visit  the  consequences 
of  sin  on  the  man  himself,  within  a  given  time, 
so  that  all  the  world  may  learn  from  his  ex- 


148  THE  RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

ample  ?  How  soon  shall  retribution  take  place  ? 
What  visitation  would  you  suggest  that  shall 
affect  no  one  but  the  criminal  ?  Shall  ignorance 
be  punished  as  summarily  as  sin  ?  If  not,  how 
shall  it  be  treated?  Shall  ignorance  prosper 
as  well  as  wisdom?  How  far-reaching  shall 
the  effects  of  both  sin  and  ignorance  be  ?  If 
they  do  not  stop  with  the  man  himself,  shall 
they  affect  his  family,  his  country,  his  age,  or 
shall  their  limits  be  undefined  ?  Shall  human 
beings  always  remain  on  the  earth,  or  shall 
they  die?  If  they  do  not  die,  shall  they  remain 
young,  or  middle-aged,  or  old  ?  What  activi- 
ties will  engross  them  on  earth  for  an  eternity? 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  they  die,  shall  it  be 
always  at  a  given  age,  or  can  other  men  in- 
fluence this  date,  and  hasten  or  retard  it? 
Will  it  be  kinder,  if  they  do  not  want  to  live 
forever  on  such  an  earth  as  has  been  given 
them,  to  soften  their  regret  at  leaving  it? 
Would  it  not  be  better  to  make  men  want  to 
die,  and  make  their  friends  face  their  departure 
with  composure?  Would  it  not  make  life 
easier  if  the  after  life  were  no  mystery,  but 
any  man  knew  his  future  as  well  as  his  past  ? 
Why  keep  men  in  a  world  they  do  not  enjoy, 
by  a  fear  of  the  next  world,  whose  essence 


THE  PROBLEM   OF   EVIL  149 

they  do  not  know?  Such  are  a  few  of  the 
questions  that  might  have  been  put  to  us,  and 
which  in  fact  are  now  put  to  us,  and  which  we 
must  consider  for  a  little.  If  we  find  that  our 
solutions  of  the  difficulty  are  no  way  different 
from  those  already  existent  in  the  world,  we 
must  decide  that  we  have  already  what  we 
want.  If  we,  on  the  other  hand,  will  have 
something  altered,  we  must  specify  how  it  is 
to  be  changed. 

In  any  given  evil  situation  we  can  feel  the 
tragedy  and  the  sorrow  of  it ;  but  should  we 
want  it  changed  in  principle?  Should  we  want 
human  beings  unable  to  choose  the  wrong 
because  of  any  other  force  than  their  own  good 
habits?  Should  we  prefer  total  impassivity  to 
our  real  grief?  And  do  we  really  want  not  to 
die  ?  Perhaps  nothing  would  bring  the  matter 
more  vividly  before  us  than  to  imagine  con- 
ditions the  reverse  of  those  already  obtaining 
in  the  world. 

Let  us  then  protest  at  once.  The  guilty 
alone  shall  suffer  for  their  evil  deeds,  and  the 
innocent  shall  start  with  a  clean  page.  Each 
man  shall  have  a  just  punishment  in  the  na- 
ture of  things,  and  not  suffer  as  much  for  an 
impulsive  moment  as  another  man  does  for 


150  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

long  contemplated  crime.  Ignorance  shall  not 
meet  the  same  fate  as  sin,  and  man  shall  not 
die.  If  he  does,  it  shall  simply  be  at  the  nat- 
ural end  of  his  life  and  without  loss  of  powers, 
only  with  a  loss  of  the  will  to  live.  All  this  is 
a  legitimate  wish  if  we  really  want  it ;  but  if 
we  choose  such  a  course  of  things  we  must 
face  all  its  consequences. 

This  demand  springs  at  bottom  from  the 
desire  that  men  should  be  separate  individuals, 
and  not  be  of  a  common  family.  It  arises 
from  the  protest  against  one  person's  having 
a  better  chance  than  another  ;  against  a  child's 
being1  burdened  with  the  frailties  of  his  father 

s> 

or  of  his  society ;  against  a  man  at  one  corner 
of  the  earth  suffering  because  of  the  deficiencies 
of  another  man  at  an  opposite  corner.  "  Why 
should  I  be  deprived  of  the  use  of  my  arm, 
because  a  drunken  conductor  ran  my  car  off  the 
track?  Why  should  I  be  an  invalid  because  of 
my  great-grandfather's  mistakes  ?  Why  should 
a  burglar  have  the  power  to  shoot  my  son  ? ' 
It  is  natural  enough  to  say  in  our  heat  that 
the  conductor,  the  great-grandfather,  and  the 
burglar  should  have  the  capacity  to  kill  them- 
selves but  not  us,  that  in  the  nature  of  things 
it  ought  to  be  impossible  for  their  lives  to  hurt 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   EVIL  151 

ours.  But  implying,  as  this  does,  an  isolation 
of  individual  influence  to  one's  own  person 
alone,  do  we  really  mean  what  we  say  ?  Sup- 
pose that  what  we  say  we  want,  is  actually 
the  case.  The  constitution  of  things  has  been 
altered  to  suit  us,  and  all  is  the  reverse  of 
what  it  was.  At  first  we  feel  a  great  freedom 
from  responsibility.  It  is  glorious  to  know  that 
I  have  no  obligations  to  any  one,  nor  any  one 
to  me,  and  there  is  a  certainty  about  results 
which  was  never  possible  in  the  old  way.  I 
know  in  every  decision  that  my  goodness  will 
be  appreciated  by  a  waiting  world  at  its  exact 
worth,  and  since  my  punishment  is  my  own 
business,  I  need  refrain  from  nothing  because 
of  its  possible  effect  on  my  friends,  my  children, 
my  contemporaries,  or  posterity.  They  will 
start  free,  exactly  as  if  I  had  not  existed  at 
all.  I  am  an  isolated  unit,  wholly  sufficient  or 
deficient  unto  myself,  with  a  clean  slate,  on 
which  no  one  can  make  a  mark  but  myself. 

As  it  is  in  the  world  at  present,  while  we 
feel  that  virtue  gets  its  reward  in  the  individual 
conscience  by  its  sense  of  duty  done,  we  know 
that  it  is  not  always  adequately  recognized  and 
applauded  by  the  public.  There  is  some  hesi- 
tation, when  embarking  in  a  new  enterprise, 


152  THE  RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

as  to  whether  it  will  be  understood,  whether 
our  motives  will  be  considered  pure,  and,  in 
fact,  whether  it  will  turn  out  to  be  the  best 
thing  after  all.  But  in  this  new  scheme  there 
will  be  not  the  slightest  difficulty  in  dividing 
the  sheep  from  the  goats.  If  a  man  is  unhappy, 
we  need  not  sympathize  with  him,  for  he  is 
getting  what  he  expected,  and  what  he  chose 
with  his  eyes  open.  And  the  virtuous  are  not 
to  be  commended,  for  they  are  getting  the 
best  of  the  bargain,  and  are  being  amply  re- 
warded for  any  inconvenience  it  may  have 
cost  them.  Indeed,  he  is  only  a  fool  who 
chooses  to  sin,  when  prosperity  and  good 
health  attend  him  on  his  virtuous  path. 

This  conception  of  the  nature  of  things  is 
not  a  new  one  in  history.  The  old  Jewish 
notion  was  rather  frankly  based  on  the  profit 
and  loss  aspect  of  the  godly  life.  The  righteous 
man  spread  himself  like  a  green  bay  tree,  and 
the  wicked  man  was  caught  in  his  own  net. 
Moreover,  from  any  point  of  view,  the  right- 
eous life  has  been  found  to  pay  in  the  long 
run,  from  the  peace  it  brings  the  soul,  and  the 
respect  from  the  most  high-minded  portion  of 
society.  But  it  has  not  always  paid,  in  the 
sense  that  it  has  brought  health,  an  easy  life, 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  EVIL  153 

or  the  appreciation  of  the  majority.  On  the 
contrary,  it  has  more  often  than  otherwise  led 
to  a  serious  sacrifice  of  pleasure,  ambition, 
and  even  of  life.  This  is  the  risk  that  the 
righteous  man  has  had  to  run.  It  has  been 

o 

something  of  a  leap  in  the  dark,  where  the 
reward  has  become  a  less  and  less  prominent 
part  of  the  consideration,  as  the  nature  was 
noble  and  the  situation  a  serious  one.  These 
two  changes  in  the  nature  of  things  —  certain 
reward  and  punishment  for  the  innocent  and 
guilty  respectively,  and  the  impossibility  of 
evil  (and  therefore  of  good)  influence  —  would 
assuredly  alter  our  attitude  to  many  situations, 
and  with  its  greater  justice  bring  a  lack  of 
savor  to  certain  virtues. 

For  instance,  there  has  been  a  satisfaction  in 
the  family  hitherto,  as  the  parents  saw  their 
children  respond  to  the  good  things  they  had 
struggled  to  provide  for  them,  even  though 
they  sighed  to  see  their  own  shortcomings 
reproduced  in  their  offspring.  But  now  the 
father  may  be  as  dissipated,  and  the  mother 
as  deceitful  as  she  chooses.  They  know  they 
have  no  influence  on  their  children,  and,  in 
fact,  are  brought  up  standing  with  the  fact 
that  they  are  not  their  children  at  all !  They 


154  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

are  simply  children  as  such,  with  no  depend- 
ence on  any  one  for  good  or  evil,  and  the 
parents,  with  their  freedom  from  responsi- 
bility, have  lost  their  parenthood. 

In  business,  the  same  freedom  brings  the 
same  isolation.  Let  the  railroad  employees, 
the  bridge  -  builders,  the  meat -packers,  the 
teachers,  the  doctors,  the  chauffeurs,  and  the 
nursemaids  be  as  careless  as  they  choose.  The 
engineers  and  the  chauffeurs  will  kill  them- 
selves, and  such  of  their  load  of  passengers  as 
deserve  it.  The  nursemaid  may  abandon  her 
charges,  and  the  doctor  prescribe  quack  doses  ; 
for  surely  it  is  not  just,  that  an  innocent  baby 
should  suffer  lasting  injury  from  a  careless 
maid,  and  why  should  a  doctor  have  the  ca- 
pacity to  poison  our  systems?  Whatever  we 
may  say  nowadays  about  the  separation  of 
classes,  we  are  in  reality  most  manifoldly  bound 
up  with  one  another.  We  commit  ourselves  a 
hundred  times  a  day  with  trusting  confidence 
to  our  unknown  brethren,  from  the  milkman 
to  the  subway  architects,  though  we  know  that 
they  can  kill  us,  and  sometimes  they  do.  A 
king  is  not  safe  from  his  valet  or  his  cook, 
and  the  cook  or  the  valet  is  not  safe  from  the 
king,  except  as  each  respects  the  bond  that 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   EVIL  155 

unites  them.  Occasionally  they  do  not  respect 
it,  and  as  the  distance  becomes  wider  and 
wider  between  a  man  and  his  possible  victim, 
the  bond  has  less  and  less  strength,  until  most 
of  us  can  endure  with  comparative  ease  the 
murder  of  our  brethren  if  they  are  sufficiently 
removed  from  sight.  In  the  new  state  of  af- 

o 

fairs,  however,  the  milkman  poisons  only 
himself,  and  since  this  means  that  his  action 
must  bring  pain  to  no  innocent  person,  his 
family  and  society  must  have  ceased  to  care 
anything  about  him.  In  fact,  it  is  absolutely 
essential  that  all  affection  shall  be  restricted 
to  the  perfect  man  in  this  new  regime,  since 
sympathy  with  the  unjust  man  in  his  certain 
destruction  will  only  bring  an  uncalled-for 
pain  upon  ourselves.  If  my  friend  sins  then, 
I  am  at  once  indifferent  to  him,  for  he  must 
arouse  no  pangs  in  my  innocent  breast. 

This  whole  supposition  demands  a  satiric 
treatment,  which  only  a  master  of  prose  could 
give  it.  If  we  have  sighed  hitherto  for  the  Mil- 
tonic  imagination  to  picture  divine  emotions, 
we  need  now  the  irony  of  Swift  to  picture  our 
world  as  it  would  be  if  this  ideal  isolated  jus- 
tice obtained  in  it.  The  meaning  of  patriotism 
would  be  curiously  changed  if  every  good 


156  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

soldier  knew  that  no  enemy's  bullet  could 
touch  him,  while  the  unworthy  man,  who  must 
expect  death,  would  assuredly  keep  away. 
Love  and  sympathy  would  be  a  different  matter 
if  they  were  immediately  outgrown  when  their 
object  was  found  unworthy,  and  a  mother 
would  face  the  death  of  her  sinful  child  with- 
out interest  or  emotion.  This  must,  of  course, 
happen  if  a  good  woman  is  not  to  suffer  for 

another's  sin.  The  eve  must  watch  the  hand 

*/ 

in  flames  without  winking,  and  the  mouth 
bear  witness  against  the  body  with  equanim- 
ity, for  why  should  an  eye  suffer  for  a  hand  ? 
"As  it  is  written,  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth.'3 

Swift  has  indeed  come  to  our  aid  in  his 
terrible  portrayal  of  endless  human  life  upon 
earth.  Certainly  no  death  and  no  future  tor- 
ment could  exceed  the  horror  of  that  imagined 
survival  of  the  earthly  life,  and  we  can  hardly 
say  either  that  he  has  exaggerated  the  facts. 
Those  who  have  read  his  voyage  to  Laputa, 
which  succeeds  the  famous  sojourn  with  the 
Brobdingnags,  will  remember  the  unfortunate 
immortals,  who  show  at  birth,  by  the  spot 
upon  their  temples,  that  death  can  never  be 
their  portion.  Mr.  Gulliver,  upon  hearing  of 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  157 

these  deathless  ones,  is  carried  away  with  en- 
thusiasm over  their  lot,  an  enthusiasm  which 
he  observes  is  not  shared  by  their  countrymen. 
On  closer  acquaintance  with  them,  he  finds 
that  their  future  is  not  one  for  congratulation. 
In  order  that  the  next  generation  shall  have 
an  equal  chance,  and  one  set  of  undying  per- 
sons be  not  allowed  to  monopolize  the  fruits 
of  the  earth,  they  are  regarded  as  dead  by 
the  law  after  a  certain  age ;  indeed,  their  own 
exhaustion  of  the  resources  of  earth  interest 
makes  them  clamor  for  death  as  other  men 
have  clamored  for  life. 

This  kind  of  a  nightmare,  of  course,  does 
no  one  any  good  except  to  give  one  pause,  as 
it  did  Mr.  Gulliver,  who  remarked,  "From 
what  I  had  heard  and  seen,  my  keen  appetite 
for  perpetuity  of  life  was  much  abated.  I  grew 
heartily  ashamed  of  the  pleasing  visions  I 
had  formed ;  and  thought  no  tyrant  could  in- 
vent a  death  into  which  I  would  not  run  with 
pleasure  from  such  a  life." 

One  of  Swift's  critics  made  this  comment, 
which  we  must  admit  is  perfectly  true :  "  The 
sis:ht  of  such  an  'immortal'  would  no  other- 

o 

wise  arm  men  against  the  fear  of  death,  who 
have  no  hope  beyond  it,  than  a  man  is  armed 


158  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

against  the  fear  of  breaking  his  limbs,  who 
jumps  out  of  a  window  when  his  house  is  on 
fire."  In  other  words,  a  choice  that  lies  simply 
between  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea  will  not 
rouse  hope  in  either  direction,  but  a  fear  in 
both.  So  a  man  who  has  no  hope  in  death 
must  admit  that  he  has  none  in  life  either, 
and  the  case  is  at  least  equal.  We  can  turn 
drearily  from  one  alternative  to  another,  and  say 
that  at  least  one  situation  is  no  worse  than  the 
other,  even  though  neither  brings  comfort 
with  it. 

This  kind  of  an  issue  is,  however,  not  what 
we  are  looking  for.  We  must  accept  the  con- 
stitution of  this  world  as  good,  unless  we  can 
suggest  another  better,  but  not  quarrel  with 
it  if  our  modifications  only  bring  about  another 
condition  just  as  bad. 

It  may  be,  then,  that  we  are  willing  to  ad- 
mit all  the  foregoing  supposition  as  reduction 
to  an  absurdity,  but  still  protest  that  the  dif- 
ficulty lies  in  the  existence  of  evil  at  all.  If 
men  can  sin,  their  children,  their  friends,  and 
their  countrymen  must  suffer  more  or  less 
with  them.  We  admit  that  the  ties  of  family 
and  of  affection  are  too  vital  to  be  thrown  over, 
simply  to  obtain  the  immunity  from  suffering 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   EVIL  159 

possible  only  in  such  unsocial  isolation  as  we 
have  described.  We  will  then  grant  that  the 
burden  of  our  ability  to  make  the  innocent 
suffer  is  a  restraint,  a  bond  of  family  tie,  as 
is  the  responsibility  that  comes  with  it  of 
passing  on  good  gifts,  as  undeserved  as  the 
evil  ones.  I  have  to  suffer  for  financial  panics 
that  are  not  my  fault,  and  I  enjoy  national 
prosperity  which  is  also  none  of  my  doing. 
The  wisdom  of  this  general  principle  perhaps 
some  of  us  will  allow,  but  we  nevertheless  con- 
tend, "Why  have  financial  panics?  Why  are 
men  allowed  to  be  criminally  negligent  so  that 
their  cigars  set  forest  fires,  and  their  flimsy 
architecture  allows  theatres  to  collapse?'  In 
other  words,  is  this  freedom  to  do  evil  any 
real  freedom  at  all?  Is  it  not  a  bondage  into 
which  we  are  born,  rather  than  liberty,  and 
should  we  not  all  be  freer  men,  if  we  could 
not  do  evil  if  we  would  ? 

There  is  some  truth  in  this,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted at  once.  We  are  really  more  free  with 
some  voluntary  restraint,  or  as  Kant  said, 
"  The  good  will  is  the  only  one  that  is  free." 
Here  are  two  men  of  middle  age,  one  of  them 
a  slave  to  the  habit  of  drink,  and  the  other 
with  years  of  upright  living  behind  him.  In 


160  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

one  sense,  is  he  not  a  slave  as  well  as  the 
other?  Is  not  one  as  much  in  bondage  to  his 
good  habits  as  the  other  to  his  bad,  so  that  it 
would  be  as  impossible  for  him  to  spend  his 
days  in  the  saloon  as  it  is  for  the  other  man 
to  keep  out  of  it  ?  Most  of  us  are  more  or  less 
slaves  to  the  non-killing  habit,  so  that  it 
would  be  difficult,  not  to  say  impossible,  for 
us  to  shoot  a  man  for  his  watch.  Some  men 
could  perform  this  feat  easily;  are  they  not 
then  more  free  than  we?  Most  of  us  feel  that 
this  is  leading  us  too  far.  Our  incapacity  to 
kill  is  only  a  fetter  if  we  want  to  kill.  Since 
in  point  of  fact  we  do  not  want  to,  and  do 
not  want  to  want  to,  this  background  of  an 
opposite  habit  is  a  support  and  not  a  drag  to 
us.  The  reason  that  the  drink  habit  is  a  bond- 
ao-e,  is  that  the  man  is  divided  against  himself. 

O      '  *-* 

He  wants  to  drink,  but  he  does  not  want  to 
want  to,  and  hence  the  will  that  contradicts 
itself  is  not  free.  It  is  the  opposition  of  itself 
to  itself  that  makes  a  will  a  slave,  not  the  op- 
position of  outside  factors  to  it,  hence  it  is 
only  the  good  will  which  never  contradicts 
itself.  In  this  sense  Christ  in  chains  was  a 
freer  personality  than  the  hesitating  Pilate. 
Our  duty  is,  then,  to  develop  a  greater  and 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  EVIL  161 

greater  bondage  to  good  habits.  If  we  tell 
lies  easily  at  ten  years  of  age,  at  twenty  it 
should  be  more  difficult,  and  at  fifty  impos- 
sible. Our  life  should  be  spent  in  losing  our 
liberty  to  do  evil,  just  as  our  sense  of  person- 
ality was  acquired  only  to  lose  it  as  soon  as 
possible,  in  the  life  of  the  whole. 

If  all  this  is  true,  are  we  not  contradicting 
what  we  have  been  affirming  ever  since  we 
started?  We  have  spoken  of  the  ability  to 
sin  as  if  it  were  a  certain  patent  of  superiority 
of  freedom.  We  affirmed  that  our  right  to 
reject  God  if  we  choose  was  the  human  capa- 
city that  made  us  God-like,  while  here  we  say 
that  any  evil  will  in  the  course  of  time  is 
bound  to  contradict  itself,  and  is  therefore  not 
a  free  agent.  Our  whole  system  of  education 
seems  to  be  on  the  plan  of  depriving  children 
of  the  freedom  to  do  evil.  We  shield  young 
children  from  even  the  knowledge  of  some 
sins,  and  certainly  from  all  opportunity  to 
commit  them,  thereby  forcing  as  much  alle- 
giance to  the  good  life  as  possible,  so  that 
they  may  not  even  have  the  risk  of  choice. 
We  all  acknowledge  that  this  is  wise ;  why 
should  we  not  carry  it  further?  The  wonders 
of  hypnotism  we  are  only  beginning  to  under- 


162  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

stand.  A  man  under  its  influence  can  be  cured 
of  many  an  evil  habit.  The  physician  says 
to  him  in  hypnosis,  "  When  the  impulse  to 
take  morphine  begins  to  attack  you  next 
time,  you  will  not  submit  to  it,"  and  under 
the  influence  of  this  post-hypnotic  suggestion, 
the  patient  is  deprived  of  the  will  to  take  the 
drug  and  becomes  in  time  a  cured  man. 

Why  should  not  this  device  be  employed 
with  all  the  rising  generation,  before  it  gets 
so  deep  in  bad  habits  of  all  kinds?  We  use 
good  influences,  why  not  good  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion? We  put  children  under  helpful 
teachers  who  suggest  things  to  them  in  a  nor- 
mal fashion,  why  not  strain  a  point  and  have 
these  suggestions  so  imperative  in  hypnosis 
that  they  cannot  be  resisted,  and  hence  avoid 
much  later  suffering? 

Here  again  we  begin  to  feel  that  we  are 
driven  into  a  position  we  do  not  care  to  hold. 
We  realize  that  all  the  time  while  we  are  giv- 
ing suggestions  and  helpful  environment, 
while  we  are  keeping  certain  phases  of  life  in 
the  background  and  emphasizing  others,  we 
are  regarding  our  children  not  wholly  as  per- 
sons, but  as  persons  to  be.  They  are  not  yet 
quite  individual,  but  they  are,  in  so  far  as  our 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  EVIL  1G3 

will  chooses  for  them,  "  things '  which  shall 
some  day  be  men.  After  a  certain  amount  o£ 
modeling  in  the  hands  of  the  potter,  they  are 
sent  forth  with  a  dower  of  memories,  of  use- 
ful habits  and  tendencies,  and  told  to  fend  for 
themselves.  These  good  habits  do  not  make 
them  slaves,  for  we  see  all  too  often  how  eas- 
ily they  are  outgrown,  but  they  merely  help 
the  will  to  an  equal  chance.  There  are  so 
many  attractions  dragging  a  life  in  all  direc- 
tions, that  for  a  will  to  hold  a  single  course  of 
goodness  among  various  paths  of  contradic- 
tion, it  must  have  some  help  to  make  the  game 
an  even  one.  Nevertheless,  after  we  are  ma- 
ture, we  feel  that  it  is  better  for  us  to  have 
our  choice  even  at  the  risk  of  having  our  fin- 
gers scorched,  than  to  live  forever  in  safety 
under  the  guidance  of  some  one  else. 

The  situation,  then,  seems  to  be  this.  The 
freedom  to  do  evil  must  be  a  real  one,  in  that 
a  man  is  prevented  from  doing  it  only  by 
himself.  The  more  he  makes  the  evil  impos- 
sible for  himself  by  his  own  choice,  by  his 
deliberate  habits,  by  the  position  in  society 
where  he  chooses  to  put  himself,  the  more  — 
not  the  less-  -he  becomes  free,  because  his 
will  is  still  attaining  what  it  wants.  Whatever 


164  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

bondage  to  the  good  he  puts  himself  under  is 
not  bondage,  but  freedom,  yet  he  must  have 
had  the  chance  to  choose  the  other  slavery 
which  really  deserves  its  name.  Just  as  the 
essence  of  the  divine  in  us  is  our  capacity  to 
assert  our  God-head  or  deny  it,  so  the  essence 
of  our  will  is  that  it  can  choose  its  free  path, 
or  can  choose  to  deprive  itself  of  ah1  free- 
dom by  bondage  to  the  evil.  We  can  even 
choose  to  keep  out  of  reach  of  certain  temp- 
tations, and  by  so  doing  (other  things  being 
equal)  we  have  overcome  them,  for  there  is 
no  virtue  in  the  mere  expenditure  of  energy 
in  struggle.  But  we  now  see  that  no  matter 
how  much  we  deplore  the  evil  wills  in  the 
world,  —  the  wills  that  frustrate  themselves  as 
well  as  us,  and  bring  desolation  with  them,  — 
nevertheless,  we  prefer  to  live  in  a  world  of 
men  who  have  had  their  chance.  It  remains 
for  us  to  lock  them  up  and  treat  them  as  dan- 
gerous things,  if  they  become  insupportable, 
or  more  important  still,  to  treat  them  as  pre- 
cious things  a  little  longer  and  more  thor- 
oughly in  their  youth,  so  that  they  start  their 
real  life  with  a  better  equipment.  That  we  do 
not  so  care  for  our  weaker  brethren  shows 
that  we  are  not  so  much  concerned  over  the 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   EVIL  1G5 

evil  in  the  world  as  we  pretend  to  be  in  our 
quiet  moments. 

All  that  we  have  said  in  this  chapter  about 
the  will  proves  of  course  nothing  about  its 
final  essence.  Whether  we  are  in  the  last  anal- 
ysis anything  more  than  moving  machines  can- 
not be  proved,  because  there  is  no  possible 
system  of  proof  that  will  convince  an  impar- 
tial mind  one  way  or  the  other.  If  we  are 
only  automatons,  we  must  give  up  such  a  God 
as  we  have  described,  or  indeed  any  God  who 
can  demand  anything  whatever  of  us.  We 
must  also  give  up  our  notion  of  real  virtue  or 
sin  or  blame.  In  short,  our  whole  conception 
of  personality  goes  with  it,  and  so  far  as  log- 
ical proof  is  concerned,  this  is  all  as  possible 
as  the  reverse.  But  if  we  have  chosen  to  walk 
the  path  along  which  our  hope  rather  than 
our  dread  leads  us,  this  mechanical  point  of 
view  is  forever  impossible. 

We  have  found  that  our  Eden  can  never  be 
complete  without  a  tree  of  forbidden  fruit  in 
its  midst.  Happy  are  we  if  we  choose  not  to 
eat  of  it.  Society  is  the  more  content  if  we 
nibble  only  the  more  inconspicuous  apples, 
though  for  our  own  souls  it  does  not  much 
matter  which  one  we  pick,  if  we  taste  at  all. 


166  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

Our  spiritual  health  depends  in  its  weakest 
stages  on  our  not  willing  even  the  evil  we  may 
want,  but  we  are  hardly  robust  until  what  we 
will  and  what  we  want  have  come  into  har- 
mony. The  path  of  virtue  leads  at  last  to  this 
harmony  of  will  desire,  even  though  on  the 
way  the  will  is  sometimes  divided  against  it- 
self ;  whereas  the  evil  will  must  eventually  con- 
tradict itself,  no  matter  how  deceptively  har- 
monious it  is  at  first. 

We  shall  not  go  into  any  ethical  theories 
here.  Our  only  effort  has  been  to  convince 
some  of  our  counsel  for  the  complaint,  that  if 
the  evil  world  is  ail  the  charge  they  have 
against  the  Creator,  they  must  withdraw  their 
suit.  They  must  admit  that  they  really  have 
in  principle  what  they  want,  however  badly 
the  details  work  themselves  out  through  their 

o 

own  misuse  of  freedom. 

As  we  look  over  our  questions  with  which 
we  began  the  discussion  we  find  ourselves  say- 
ing, "  We  are  all  brothers,  and  bound  up  with 
one  another.  We  prefer  to  be  persons,  though 
that  allows  us  to  deny  our  will,  our  God,  and 
our  brotherhood,  if  we  choose.  We  must  in- 
fluence one  another  infinitely,  though  that 
implies  that  evil  shall  be  passed  on  as  well  as 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  167 

good,  and  that  the  innocent  and  the  unworthy 
will  get  both  more  and  less  than  they  deserve." 
Ignorance  must  not  prosper,  and  virtue  must 
not  seek  its  ideal  because  of  certain  reward. 
We  do  not  care  to  live  here  forever.  All 
friends  cannot  die  at  once,  leaving  no  rup- 
tured ties,  and  those  who  are  left  do  not 
want  to  give  up  their  grief  for  anything  less 
than  an  infinite  faith.  A  complete  knowledge 
of  where  they  or  we  are  going  would  not 
help  us,  except  as  we  have  a  right  to  believe 
we  shall  be  safe  with  a  good  God.  Sensation 
contact  with  them,  although  we  miss  it,  is  not 
what  we  really  desire,  any  more  than  we  wish 
such  contact  with  God.  We  want  to  be  actu- 
ally with  them,  with  no  reservations,  and  we 
hope  that  we  shall  be,  —  therefore  we  believe. 
We  have  a  dread  of  death,  but  we  want  this 
very  dread.  Without  it,  the  temptation  to  die 
would  be  too  hard  to  fight,  and  we  should 
leave  our  work  unfinished.  We  find  ourselves, 
after  all  the  efforts  of  our  imagination,  in  just 
such  a  world  as  we  have  always  lived  in  ! 
We  began  with  this  :  — 

Oh  Love,  could  you  and  I  with  Him  conspire 
To  grasp  this  sorry  scheme  of  things  entire, 
Would  we  not  shatter  it  to  bits  —  and  then 
Re-mould  it  nearer  to  the  Heart's  desire  ? 


168  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

But  we  find  upon  thinking  out  each  opposite 
possibility  to  its  conclusion,  that  we  have  our 
heart's  desire  already !  It  is  the  individual  case 
which  we  deplore,  and  not  the  principle.  We 
have  chosen  the  law  ourselves,  but  we  are 
unstable  enough  to  quarrel  with  its  natural 
outcome.  This  clash  of  will  is  also  human, 
therefore  we  love  it!  We  would  not  be  such 
fatalists  as  to  sink  into  a  nerveless  apathy,  or 
such  pessimists  as  to  have  no  choice  but  to 
curse  God  and  die.  Nor  indeed  would  we  be 
possessed  of  a  philosophic  calm,  which  could 
be  moved  by  neither  indignation  nor  pity. 

We  are  human,  therefore  we  struggle,  but 
there  is  enough  of  the  divine  in  all  of  us  to 

o 

look  upon  creation  as  a  whole  and  say,  "  Be- 
hold, it  is  very  good." 


VI 

PRAYER 

WE  are  now  out  of  the  woods  of  theory,  in 
the  open  field  of  experimental  facts.  There  is 
no  need  to  begin  on  a  philosophy  of  prayer, 
because  by  our  definition  of  God  we  know 
that  prayer  is  not  only  natural  but  necessary, 
and  the  relation  of  all  others  that  the  Creator 
would  have  established  between  Himself  and 
His  children.  The  question  is  now  rather, 
"How  does  one  pray  ?':  If  we  had  not  already 
defined  the  kind  of  God  we  choose  to  believe 
in,  we  should  have  a  right  to  ask  such  ques- 
tions as  these:  "Is  it  reasonable  to  pray?  Is 
there  a  God  to  hear,  and  is  it  possible  for  Him 
to  answer? '  but  coming  as  far  as  we  already 
have,  these  questions  have  answered  them- 
selves. We  accept  the  possibility  of  prayer 
and  of  answer  on  exactly  the  same  basis  as 
that  on  which  we  have  believed  in  our  God. 
We  believe  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer  because 
we  must  either  believe  in  it  or  its  opposite, 
and  the  hoped-for  alternative  is  always  our 
choice. 


170  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

The  question  before  us  is  therefore  a  differ- 
ent one.  We  want  no  theories  nor  assump- 
tions, but  experimental  testimony  as  to  how 
one  actually  prays ;  and  although  the  question 
might  seem  easier  to  answer  than  some  queries 
we  have  already  advanced,  this  is  by  no  means 
the  case. 

If  we  were  asked  what  we  meant  by  prayer, 
most  of  us  would  give  an  answer  like  the  fol- 
lowing :  "  It  is  the  addressing  of  petitions  to  a 
Being  whom  we  do  not  see,  but  whom  we  be- 
lieve to  exist."  Most  of  us,  at  some  time  of 
our  life  at  least,  have  prayed ;  that  is,  we 
have  addressed  petitions  in  thought  or  words 
to  such  a  supposed  Being ;  and  yet  many  of 
us  feel,  at  the  same  time,  that  in  spite  of  this 
exercise  we  have  never  really  prayed.  We  feel 
that  it  did  not  amount  to  anything,  that  no 
results  came  from  it,  and  we  have  either  out- 
grown the  habit,  or  continue  to  indulge  in 
public  or  private  prayer  only  because  it  seems 
somehow  the  thing  to  do.  Although  most  peo- 
ple feel  a  certain  sentimental  attachment  to 
the  practice  of  prayer,  —  children  should  be 
taught  it,  a  devout  old  lady  is  more  attractive 
than  the  reverse,  —  there  is  certainly  a  wide 
discontinuance  of  its  exercise  in  any  serious 


PRAYER  171 

and  regular  way,  and  I  believe  this  is  largely 
due,  with  would-be  religious  people,  to  the 
fact  that  they  actually  do  not  know  its  tech- 
nique. It  can  be  said  in  a  certain  sense  that 
all  the  world  prays,  but  in  another  that  prayer 
is  an  art  attained  by  very  few. 

We  all  of  us  know  what  we  mean  when  we 
say  pole-vaulting,  or  singing  operatic  music, 
or  driving  a  four-in-hand,  but  how  many  of 
us  can  do  these  things,  and  do  them  well? 
Some  of  us  try  spasmodically  to  do  all  of  them, 
but  we  seldom  get  so  that  their  performance 
is  easy  or  satisfactory,  and  as  we  grow  older, 
we  give  up  the  struggle.  While  we  admire  the 
feats  performed  by  those  who  have  been  more 
persistent,  we  confess  that  such  attainments  are 
not  for  us.  Now  these  exercises  need  training, 
they  are  the  result  of  delicate  adjustment  and  of 
long  patience,  and  there  are  few  artists  in  these 
or  any  other  callings.  Prayer  is  an  exercise,  on 
the  religious  side,  an  intercourse  with  one's 
God,  but  on  the  mental  side  an  exercise  which 
is  sometimes  difficult  and  often  fatiguing, 
and  can  no  more  be  learned  to  perfection 
in  a  few  trials  than  can  the  arts  of  lesser  sig- 
nificance. It  is  all  very  well  to  say,  and  it  is 
in  a  sense  true,  that  any  man  can  pray  if  he 


172  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

only  will.  His  desire  is  the  main  thing,  and 
the  performance  is  of  less  account.  But  every 
man  who  begins  to  pray  after  long  disuse  of 
the  practice,  knows  very  well  that  he  cannot 
pray  as  he  wishes  to.  He  either  has  never  had 
the  art,  or  he  has  lost  it,  and  while  he  derives 
some  comfort  from  the  little  he  is  able  to  re- 
gain, he  will  not  know  how  to  pray  until  he 
has  learned  the  art  over  again. 

There  has  been  much  scientific  interest  of 
late  years  on  all  sides  in  the  matters  of  reli- 
gion, prayer,  conversion,  and  revival.  Psy- 
chologists and  philosophers  have  devoted 
themselves  to  the  investigation  of  these  phe- 
nomena as  they  had  formerly  done  to  other 
normal  or  abnormal  activities  of  the  mind. 
They  have  tried  to  collect  data  from  many 
sources  on  how  men  pray,  their  emotions  after 
prayer,  their  reasons  for  praying,  and  many 
other  related  questions  ;  and  the  resulting  mass 
of  material,  though  often  undigested,  has  re- 
vealed the  fact  that  many  men  were  actually 
praying  and  deriving  satisfaction  from  so 
doing.  The  main  difficulty  with  this  kind  of 
investigation  is  that  the  compiler  of  the  sta- 
tistics takes  so  often  a  detached  point  of  view, 
and  is  so  apt  to  be  a  non-praying  man,  that 


PRAYER  173 

what  is  usually  the  richest  source  of  any  such 
observation  —  namely,  the  observer  himself 
—  is  conspicuously  lacking.  It  is  not  usual,  I 
think,  for  a  deaf  man  to  undertake  experiments 
on  sound,  although  with  care  this  might  be 
managed.  The  work  of  any  psychologist  on 
the  emotions  is  apt  to  be  weak,  if  he  does  not 
have  an  inkling  of  what  it  is  all  about  from 
his  own  emotional  life.  Of  course  he  has  a 
right  to  compile  statistics  from  what  his 
subjects  tell  him,  but  he  cannot  look  at  the 
matter  with  the  sympathetic  understanding  of 
one  who  has  also  had  an  emotion.  His  discrimi- 
nation cannot  be  keen,  and  his  suggestions 
are  not  valuable.  Few  investigators  choose  to 
work  in  aesthetics,  if  they  have  no  feeling 
for  the  beautiful.  Some  doubtless  do  so,  and 
record  what  others  tell  them  of  their  delight 

o 

in  music,  or  of  the  difference  in  their  appreci- 
ation of  prose  and  poetry.  But  no  one  is  apt 
to  be  a  success  in  this  field  who  cannot  use 
himself  as  his  own  best  subject.  The  whole 
matter  does  not  branch  in  his  mind,  criticisms 
do  not  suggest  themselves,  and  while  the 
records  of  other  people's  comments  may  be 
faithful  and  exact,  his  own  contributions  must 
necessarily  be  of  a  slight  order.  The  situation 


174  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

in  the  religious  field  seems  to  stand  in  this 

o 

predicament.  The  men  who  pray  do  not  tell 
how  they  do  it,  as  a  general  thing ;  and  also, 
as  a  general  thing,  the  psychologists  who  tell 
us  how  it  is  done,  do  not  do  it  themselves. 
Each  side  is  a  trifle  suspicions  of  the  other. 
The  psychologist  interested  to  observe  but 
not  to  practice,  and  the  praying  man  deter- 
mined to  practice  and  equally  determined  not 
to  be  material  for  any  psychologist,  are  not 
likely  to  draw  each  other's  confidence.  The 
general  public  takes  it  for  granted  that  an 
interest  in  the  human  mind  is  likely  to  dimin- 
ish respect  for  its  higher  functions,  and  while 
advanced  work  in  literature  is  compatible  with 
piety,  and  one  may  be  a  Greek  archaeologist 
with  impunity,  a  religious  psychologist  is  not 
expected ;  and  if  he  prays,  it  draws  a  side- 
long glance.  I  give  this  as  the  current  opin- 
ion with  which  I  am  familiar,  although  it  may 
not  hold  in  all  localities.  I  simply  say  that  I 
am  accustomed  to  see  students  approach  their 
Latin,  their  art,  and  their  history  with  a 
cheerful  carelessness,  while  they  darkly  brood 
over  approaching  psychology,  and  their  pa- 
rents are  apt  to  shake  their  heads  until  that 
crisis  is  passed.  There  is  usually  some  basis 


PRAYER  175 

for  public  opinion,  and  it  may  be  that  the 
habit  of  observing  one's  own  mind  at  work 

O 

hinders  the  working,  just  as  we  have  observed 
that  thinking  about  one's  separate  movements 
in  crossing  a  room  does  not  tend  to  make  one 
more  graceful.  But  if  we  already  have  a  habit 
of  prayer  firmly  established,  this  period  of 
self-consciousness  will  not  affect  it  any  more 
than  the  question  whether  the  outside  world 
really  exists  makes  us  cut  our  friends.  The 
social  method  in  which  a  philosophic  seminar 
manages  the  question  of  the  reality  of  the 
world  outside  one's  own  consciousness  has 
nothing  of  this  paralyzing  effect.  As  we  have 
already  observed,  the  students  embark  briskly 
on  the  problem  together ;  they  read  papers  to 
the  listening  ears  of  the  world  whose  existence 
they  are  disproving,  and  they  contradict  the 
statements  of  their  opponents  with  as  much 
heat  as  if  they  were  not  phantoms  of  the 
imagination.  You  see  them  dispersing  from 
the  class  by  twos  and  threes,  assuring  their 
friends  that  they  are  not  there,  and  enjoying 
the  society  of  one  another's  nonentities.  It  is 
just  because  the  discussion  has  not  affected 
their  normal  life  in  any  way  but  to  make  it 
more  thoughtful,  that  all  is  as  it  should  be. 


176  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  this  skeptical  ques- 
tion cast  a  cloud  upon  the  class,  if  from  their 
very  doubt  they  gave  up  arguing  as  a  useless 
exercise,  and  took  to  discoursing  with  them- 
selves or  to  silence,  the  situation  would  be  a 
critical  one.  Moreover,  if  they  did  not  have 
a  habit  of  social  intercourse  well  fixed  upon 
them,  if  they  had  become  tired  of  speech  and 
were  looking  for  an  excuse  for  eternal  silence, 
here  would  be  their  chance.  They  would  shake 
off  the  habit  of  social  conversation  as  easily  as 
they  now  dispense  with  their  daily  prayers. 

If  prayer  is  considered  from  its  formal  side, 
as  the  recitation  of  certain  devotional  words 
which  other  men  have  written,  the  difficulty 
at  once  presents  itself,  of  making  one's  own 
desires,  one's  own  mood,  fit  in  with  another's 
phraseology.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man  is 
left  to  himself  to  pray,  he  often  does  not 
know  what  to  pray  about.  He  actually  does 
not  know  what  to  say.  After  asking  for  one 
or  two  things,  his  mind  refuses  to  work,  and 
he  betakes  himself  regretfully  to  something 
else,  feeling  quite  certain  that  his  praying  was 
not  done  well,  but  not  knowing  how  to  remedy 
matters.  Any  such  discussion  of  the  mechanics, 
the  technique  of  prayer  may  seem  irreverent 


PRAYER  177 

to  some,  but  I  believe  that  to  be  a  false  rever- 
ence which  keeps  any  one  from  facing  the 
facts.  The  situation  is  just  this,  —  that  in 
places  of  public  worship,  where  a  large  num- 
ber of  people  are  gathered  together  presumably 
engaged  in  prayer,  a  very  large  fraction  of 
them  in  reality  are  not  praying  at  all.  Perhaps 
the  minister  is,  and  perhaps  not.  A  certain 
class,  we  will  assume,  feel  an  actual  communion 
with  the  Person  whom  they  are  addressing. 
Certain  others  want  to  do  so,  but  cannot  keep 
their  minds  on  the  matter.  Their  ideas  go 
trailing  off  on  affairs  of  ordinary  routine,  only 
to  be  dragged  back  occasionally  by  a  violent 
jerk  ;  and  even  when  they  are  thinking  about 
what  is  being  said,  they  are  still  very  possibly 
not  praying.  With  the  class  which  makes  no 
pretense  of  paying  any  attention  to  what  is 
intended  to  be  prayer,  we  are  not  interested 
—  although  it  is  a  large  one.  We  belong  to 
the  class  of  those  who  would  pray,  but  who 
do  not  know  how,  and  our  real  state  of  mind, 
which  we  divulge  to  no  one,  hardly  even  to 
ourselves,  is  sometimes  like  this.  The  leader 
of  the  meeting  has  asked  the  participants  to 
engage  in  silent  prayer.  We  are  in  usual 
health,  with  ordinary  prospects.  Our  friends 


178  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

are  well,  we  have  no  anxiety  on  our  minds, 
and  we  do  not  know  what  to  pray  for.  We 
have  no  idea  what  to  think  about.  The  prayer- 
book  conies  to  mind  at  such  a  time,  and  we 
endeavor  to  repeat  a  prayer,  and  when  it  is 
said,  we  do  not  know  what  to  do  next.  Shall 
we  repeat  the  same  thing  over  and  over  — 
that  is,  is  there  a  virtue  in  mere  recital  ?  In 
short,  is  there  anything  in  prayer  that  differs 
essentially  from  thought,  and  when  we  have 
thought  a  prayer,  have  we  prayed  ?  Certainly 
the  testimony  of  every  one  would  be  against 
any  such  hypothesis.  The  recital  has  been 
most  unsatisfactory ;  it  has  left  us  where  we 
started,  and  we  know  that  we  have  not  yet 
struck  the  root  of  the  matter.  If  we  state  our 
difficulty  to  some  one  more  gifted  in  the  ex- 
ercise, he  replies  that  we  must  think  as  if 
speaking  to  some  one.  The  essence  of  the 
matter,  he  says,  is  that  what  we  have  thought 
has  been  listened  to,  and  if  we  have  a  vivid 
realization  of  the  presence  of  the  listener,  the 
exercise  will  not  be  such  a  barren,  one-sided 
affair.  To  this  suggestion  we  reply,  that  in 
ordinary  conversation  the  interlocutor  makes 
audible  answers,  so  that  a  man  knows  that  he 
is  being  listened  to.  If  this  response  ends, 


PRAYER  179 

and  he  has  no  indication  that  his  remarks  are 
being  heard,  he  stops  talking,  whereas  one 
must  pray  on,  without  any  response  whatever. 
We  are  then  advised  to  pause  in  the  act  of 
praying,  to  give  a  chance  for  response  to  be 
heard.  But  again  our  restive  mind  takes  ad- 
vantage of  the  pause,  and  races  off  on  its  own 
concerns  without  waiting  for  reply.  We  are 
made  sadly  conscious  that  we  do  not  know 
how,  and  that  though  we  are  willing  to  give 
the  matter  an  experimental  trial,  we  have  not 
the  technique  which  makes  the  exercise  a 
satisfactory  one. 

There  have  been  giants  in  all  the  varied 
activities  of  the  human  mind,  and  there  have 
been  among  them  giants  of  prayer.  We  know 
that  St.  Paul  and  Martin  Luther,  St.  Francis 
and  Thomas  a  Kempis,  were  able  to  pray,  not 
in  the  one  and  two  minute  periods  which  we 
can  compass,  but  for  hours  together,  and 
Jesus  Christ,  that  master  of  the  art,  prayed 
for  days  and  nights,  an  achievement  before 
which  we  stand  speechless. 

I  venture  to  say  that  even  though  we  were 
convinced  that  the  suffering  of  the  world 
would  actually  cease,  if  we  prayed  to  that  end 
for  twenty-four  hours,  not  one  of  us  would  be 


180  THE  RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

capable  of  such  a  feat !  True,  the  Bible,  our 
text-book  of  prayer,  informs  us  that  we  shall 
not  be  heard  for  our  much  speaking ;  never- 
theless, the  saints  of  history  have  spoken  much. 
They  spoke  not  for  the  sake  of  the  speaking, 
but  because  they  had  an  abundance  to  say, 
and  because  they  had  an  abundance  to  say, 
their  prayer  was  really  prayer,  and  their  names 
are  placed  among  those  of  the  world's  great 
men. 

All  the  relations  between  the  human  and 
the  divine  mind,  or  between  the  human  and 
divine  aspects  of  the  mind  of  man  alone,  have 
to  be  considered  from  the  view-points  both  of 
their  significance  and  of  their  psychology.  It 
is  nothing  against  a  motive  of  self-sacrificing 
patriotism  to  say  that  it  is  a  psychological 
fact.  Its  value  for  life  does  not  lie  in  this  as- 
pect of  it,  but  its  value  for  psychology,  though 
this  is  of  lesser  worth  in  the  general  scheme 
of  things,  is  as  real,  and  has  as  much  right  to 
be  considered.  In  the  same  way,  prayer  in  its 
perfect  exercise,  though  from  one  standpoint 
a  high  communion,  is  from  another  a  mental 
fact  like  any  other,  and  some  of  the  criteria 
of  other  mental  facts  can  be  applied  to  it. 
Prayer,  for  instance,  as  an  attentive  state  is 


PRAYER  181 

subject  to  all  the  laws  of  attention ;  as  an 
emotional  state,  it  expresses  itself  as  do  other 
emotions;  and  as  thought  in  general,  it  de- 
pends upon  memory,  mental  imagery,  and  the 
association  of  ideas.  One  must  not  attempt  to 
do  in  prayer  what  one  could  never  do  in  any 
other  line  of  mental  activity.  One  must  not 
brave  Providence  by  flying  in  the  face  of 
mental  law,  any  more  than  one  must  leap 
from  a  cliff  and  expect  angels  to  catch  him. 
A  law  is  a  law,  whether  of  mind  or  of  matter, 
and  there  are,  I  believe,  certain  ways  in  which 
a  man  cannot  pray,  however  good  his  will, 
just  as  there  are  ways  in  which  he  cannot  set 
a  broken  leg,  no  matter  how  much  his  sym- 
pathy goes  out  to  the  sufferer. 

It  is,  nevertheless,  one  thing  to  make  the 
foregoing  statement  and  another  to  instruct 
in  the  art,  and  this  indicates  exactly  where 
lies  the  weakness  of  all  such  discussion.  Other 
matters  are  decided  experimentally.  The  prob- 
lem is  taken  to  the  laboratory  and  worked 
over  by  an  investigator  and  many  observers. 
They  expect  to  arrive  at  results,  and  they  do 
sooner  or  later,  so  that  any  one  else  who  wants 
the  facts  of  such  phenomena  has  but  to  look 
up  their  data,  and  he  has  the  whole  story. 


182  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

Not  only  in  matters  of  psychology,  but  even 
more  strikingly  in  the  other  sciences,  a  prob- 
lem means  experiment,  experiment  means  re- 
sults, and  results  mean  invention.  I  can 
remember  distinctly  my  first  visit  to  New 
York  from  my  country  home,  and  how  I  was 
taken  to  the  window  to  see  a  wagon  go  past 
without  steam,  rails,  or  horses.  This  my  first 
motor-car  would  hardly  be  a  novelty  now  to 
a  savage  in  the  jungle.  Certainly  motors  to- 
day go  past  the  house  where  I  once  lived,  with 
all  too  great  frequency,  and  yet  it  was  not  so 
very  long  ago  that  I  made  my  first  visit  to 
New  York.  Flying-machines  will  be  upon  us 
shortly,  and  one  has  but  to  suggest  a  possible 
device  for  which  the  human  race  might  have 
a  whim,  to  be  tolerably  certain  that  it  will  be 
produced  without  much  waste  of  time.  This 
rapidity  of  progress  is  alarming  to  those  of 
quiet  tastes,  but  to  most  young  people  the 
prospect  is  full  of  charm.  Where  shall  we  be 
in  twenty  years  ?  What  new  wonder  will  have 
become  a  commonplace  ?  We  long  to  be  in  the 
onward  march,  and  to  utilize  forces  which  to 
our  forefathers  were  yet  undreamed  of.  There 
is  progress  in  general  education,  too,  as  well 
as  in  invention.  We  all  start  nowadays  with 


PRAYER  183 

certain  theories  as  a  background,  which  to  a 
previous  generation  meant  the  climax,  or  the 
destruction,  of  all  their  previous  knowledge. 
The  standard  of  ordinary  intelligence  is  stead- 
ily rising,  and  many  can  now  understand  sub- 
jects which  were  formerly  the  privilege  of  the 
few.  But  how  does  it  stand  in  religious  mat- 
ters ?  Are  we  on  a  higher  plane  in  religious 
practice  than  we  have  ever  been  before,  or  do 
we  pray  as  poorly  as  mankind  has  always 
prayed,  perhaps  worse  ? 

Even  if  a  man  were  not  at  all  interested  in 
prayer  through  belief  in  its  value,  but  observed 
it  solely  from  the  view-point  of  a  phenomenon, 
how  could  he  fail  to  notice  that  this  human 
function  is  apparently  at  a  standstill?  Day 
after  day,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  the  same 
kind  of  thing  being  said,  the  same  average 
amount  of  time  spent  in  doing  it,  and  the 
same  wayward  attention  and  uneasy  sense  of 
unsatisfactoriness  when  it  is  over,  in  a  large 
proportion  of  the  congregation,  —  if  indeed 
there  has  been  any  attention  at  all.  I  cannot 
think  of  any  more  striking  spectacle  than  an 
assembly  of  people  in  the  conventional  atti- 
tude of  prayer,  but  manifestly  not  praying. 
Many  of  them  are  conscientious  about  trying, 


184  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

but  they  have  not  the  art,  and  the  proportion 
of  those  who  are  succeeding  is  probably  about 
the  same  as  it  was  in  Puritan  days,  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  in  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  and  in  the  days  of  Israel's  wander- 
ings !  We  know  more  about  science  than  they, 
we  even  know  more  about  religion,  but  I 
doubt  if  any  one  now  living  could  give  Moses 
or  Elijah  any  suggestions  about  prayer. 

I  am  insisting  on  this  point  simply  for  this 
reason.  The  current  discussions  of  prayer 
approach  it  from  a  theoretical  or  from  a 
statistical  standpoint,  and  not  from  an  experi- 
mental one.  We  ask  whether  prayer  can  con- 
ceivably change  matters,  whether  there  is  actu- 
ally anything  in  it  of  value,  and  the  question 
is  apt  to  be  left  as  one  of  theory  rather  than 
of  experiment.  Is  a  different  method  of  paper- 
making,  of  shipbuilding,  of  ventilation,  of  sub- 
terranean locomotion,  of  telegraphy,  of  heal- 
ing the  sick  possible  ?  "  Try  it  and  see"  is  the 
answer  we  get  to  such  questions,  and  we  do 
try,  if  we  are  interested  in  the  matter,  until 
we  have  proved  that  our  hope  can  be  realized, 
and  our  imagined  possibilities  can  be  substan- 
tiated. "  Can  prayer  accomplish  anything  ? 
Is  it  an  art  that  can  be  raised  to  a  higher 


PRAYER  185 

standard  of  excellence  than  the  feeble  exer- 
cise of  it  to  which  we  are  accustomed?  Can 
we  become  real  'pray-ers'  in  any  sense  like 
the  great  pray-ers  of  history  who  have  wrought 
great  changes  in  the  world,  and  who  them- 
selves attributed  their  power  to  this  habit? 
Can  we  progress  in  this  art,  so  that  the  old- 
time  formulas  will  not  be  sufficient,  and  we 
must  develop  a  new  spiritual  language,  as  we 
have  a  new  scientific  vocabulary  ? '  All  this 
is  a  matter  for  experiment.  "Try  it  and  see' 
is  the  only  valid  answer,  and  the  only  reason 
why  we  do  not  try  it  and  see  is  because  we  do 
not  want  to  !  Here  is  an  exact  test  for  every 
man.  "Do  you  know  how  to  pray?'  "Not 
very  well."  "Why  not?'  "Because  I  never 
have  learned  how."  Again,  "Why  not?' 
"  Because  I  do  not  care  enough  about  it  to  try 
very  hard."  This  is  a  frank  answer,  and  states 
the  difficulty  accurately. 

We  all  play  the  piano  somewhat  when  we 
are  young,  and  in  the  press  of  other  matters 
we  drop  our  practice,  and  leave  concerts  to 
professionals.  We  leave  off  singing,  we  drop 
our  sketching,  we  lay  aside  this  and  that  ac- 
tivity in  which,  in  our  more  exuberant  days, 
we  felt  convinced  we  should  be  proficient, 


186  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

because  we  have  not  the  patience  to  work  hard 
at  them  and  have  lost  our  ambition  to  excel. 
This  is  really  the  essence  of  growing  old, — 
the  weariness  that  settles  upon  us  in  face  of 
a  variety  of  activities,  and  the  frequency  with 
which  we  admit  that  certain  subjects  are  not 
in  our  line.  In  childhood  all  the  world  is  in 
our  line,  and  praying  is  accepted  with  the 
same  cheerful  attention  as  our  meals.  We  all 
plan  great  things,  and  in  twenty  years  how 
few  of  us  are  remarkable  in  the  lines  we  have 
chosen,  any  more  than  in  those  we  have 
dropped !  As  some  one  has  remarked,  "  We 
all  begin  as  originals,  and  most  of  us  end  as 


imitations.' 


If  we  are  at  all  interested  to  bring  about  a 
different  state  of  affairs,  what  is  the  best  way 
to  begin  ?  We  are  all  of  us  better  educated 
than  our  forefathers,  but  are  we  any  more 
efficient?  We  have  greater  social  opportuni- 
ties, more  travel,  more  work,  more  variety,  but 
are  we  more  forceful  personalities  ?  Does  the 
human  race  grow  more  impressive  as  it  be- 
comes more  complex  in  its  organization  ?  No, 
our  impressiveness  and  our  force  do  not  seem 
to  keep  pace  with  our  culture.  There  is  an 
ingrowing  tendency  to  learning,  and  a  rest- 


PRAYER  187 

less  side  of  activity  which  prevents  most  of 
us  from  being  human  specimens  who  in  any 
sense  deserve  the  title  grand. 

Why  may  it  not  be  possible  that  this  very 
lack  in  human  personality,  this  failure  to  ful- 
fill its  early  promise,  is  due  to  the  universal 
disuse,  or  insufficient  use,  of  the  exercise  of 
prayer?  I  say  this  as  a  scientific  suggestion, 
which  might  be  made  by  any  one,  whether  he 
was  a  praying  man  or  not.  The  situation  is 
this.  Praying  men  —  men  who  not  only  re- 
peated prayers,  but  who  by  the  judgment  of 
their  contemporaries  really  prayed  —  have  al- 
ways been  marked  personalities.  Should  we 
not  expect  them  to  be,  if  prayer  means  a  real 
companionship  with  such  a  God  as  we  have 
described  ?  It  is  quite  possible  that  many  of  us 
cannot  number  such  a  person  among  our 
acquaintances,  but  if  we  can,  there  is  a  cer- 
tain efficiency  of  character,  entirely  aside  from 
talent,  which  is  noticeably  present,  whether 
causally  connected  or  not.  I  have  known  sev- 
eral people  who  were  raised  from  common- 
placeness  by  apparently  no  other  character- 
istic than  this.  They  were  not  gifted,  they 
were  not  subtle,  they  were  not  noted  for  their 
mental  capacity,  but  there  emanated  from 


188  THE   RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

them  a  certain  force,  which  is  conspicuously 
lacking  in  many  more  intellectual  men.  In- 
deed, intellectual  men  are  by  no  means  nec- 
essarily forceful.  Any  one  who  has  been 
thrown  with  large  numbers  of  students, 
whether  their  goal  was  a  bachelor's  or  a  doc- 
tor's degree,  any  one  who  is  acquainted  with 
a  wide  range  of  teachers  even  in  higher  insti- 
tutions of  learning,  knows  that  they  are  not 
all  influential  men.  In  fact,  the  current  social 
opinion  is  that  they  are  apt  to  be  the  reverse. 
Students  in  general,  I  believe,  look  upon  their 
instructors  with  some  pity,  and  all  too  often 
have  I  heard  such  comments  as,  "He  is  an 
awfully  interesting  man  in  spite  of  being  so 
learned,"  or  "  Such  an  instructor  is  really  very 
nice  outside  of  lectures,  you  would  never  know 
that  he  knew  a  thing ! '  No,  the  highly  edu- 
cated class  is  not  as  impressive  as  it  sometimes 
fondly  supposes.  Now  I  venture  to  suggest 
that  with  all  the  chemists  and  engineers,  the 
preachers  and  the  doctors  that  are  graduated 
every  year,  there  are  being  turned  out  very 
few  "  pray-ers,"  if  we  can  use  the  term  in  such 
a  professional  sense.  I  mean  by  that,  I  doubt 
whether  any  educated  man,  if  indeed  he  prays 
at  all,  would  be  willing  to  do  anything  else 


PRAYER  189 

so  feebly ;  and  if  he  could  pray  as  well  as  he 
could  bind  up  a  wound,  or  construct  a  bridge, 
I  believe  he  would  be  a  more  forceful  charac- 
ter than  he  is  at  present.  This  force  is  difficult 
to  analyze.  It  surely  would  imply  nothing  in 
the  way  of  a  public  exhibition  of  his  talent. 
But  I  am  certain  that  we  all  see  well  enough 
what  I  mean,  so  that  if  two  men  of  equal  pro- 
fessional ability  were  together,  one  being 
noted  for  his  strong  religious  nature,  and  the 
other  not,  we  should  take  a  second  look  at  the 
former,  and  expect  him  to  conduct  himself  in 
some  marked  fashion.  This  is  not  a  fashion- 
able point  of  view  at  present.  The  tendency 
to-day  is  to  cut  off  all  useless  exercises,  and 
praying  is  regarded  as  one  of  them.  Whether 
it  is  or  not  can  only  be  tested,  in  my  opinion, 
by  practice ;  and  since  non-praying,  weak,  and 
intermittent  praying,  formal  praying,  and 
shamefaced  praying  have  been  given  a  good 
chance  through  a  reasonable  number  of  cen- 

o 

turies,  it  is  not  impartial  or  scientific  to  give 
up  the  other  alternative  without  a  try.  More- 
over, it  ought  to  be  tried  not  only  by  the  un- 
thinking mass  of  people  who  pray  from  habit 
and  training,  but  by  the  same  class  of  scien- 
tists who  decide  other  matters  for  us. 


190  THE   RIGHT   TO  BELIEVE 

To  some,  no  doubt,  this  would  mean  a  dismal 
future.  They  do  not  want  to  pray,  they  do 
not  enjoy  even  contemplating  the  possibility, 
and  the  society  of  praying  men  would  honestly 
bore  them.  Such  individual  prepossessions  are 
bound  to  be  present  in  every  experimental  in- 
vestigation, and  every  human  being  has  as 
much  right  to  choose  his  own  religious,  as  his 
scientific  habits.  These  non-praying  men  would 
come  into  such  a  test  only  as  the  background 
against  which  the  contrary  minded  could  be 
even  more  clearly  denned.  That  is,  every  one 
would  have  to  serve  as  either  a  positive  or  a 
negative  illustration  of  the  effects  of  prayer 
on  personal  living. 

The  situation  is  one  of  absolute  lucidity. 
Either  there  is  something  in  prayer,  or  there 
is  not.  If  there  is  anything  at  all  to  be  gained 
from  it,  it  will  in  all  likelihood  be  valuable 
exactly  in  proportion  as  the  praying  is  vigor- 
ous, well  sustained,  and  "  effectual."  There 
are  probably  limits  to  the  good  effects  of  its 
duration  at  any  one  time,  just  as  muscular 
exercise  may  be  in  too  long  or  too  short  periods 
to  do  any  good.  But  as  in  general  a  man  is  a 
better  walker  if  he  can  go  four  hours  instead 
of  one,  so  a  man  will  be  a  better  pray-er  if, 


PRAYER  191 

when  he  wants  anything,  he  knows  how  to 
pray  until  he  gets  it.  The  limits  of  this  ex- 
ercise could  be  approximately  determined  by 
practice.  The  difficulty  that  few  men  want 
anything  enough  to  be  able  to  pray  for  it  any 
length  of  time  would  perhaps  be  overcome  by 
exercise ;  that  is,  a  greater  desire  for  the  spir- 
itual life  might  come  with  the  asking.  "Lord, 
I  believe,  help  thou  mine  unbelief,"  is  not  an 
uncommon  state  of  mind,  and  prayer  might 
relieve  it. 

The  men  who  really  pray,  and  who  are 
willing  to  state  their  method  in  concrete  terms, 
might  tell  whether  they  think  in  visual,  audi- 
tory, or  muscular  terms ;  whether  a  certain 
amount  of  strained  attention  is  a  necessary 
adjunct,  or  whether  prayer  can  be  consistent 
with  relaxation.  Is  it  more  effectual  to  con- 
ceive ourselves  as  addressing  an  actual  Mind 
within  our  own,  or  one  invisible  but  outside 
ourselves  ?  Is  it  feasible  to  hold  the  mind  in 
suspense  and  to  wait  for  real  response  ?  How 
can  this  be  done,  since,  psychologically  speak- 
ing, it  is  impossible  to  think  of  nothing,  and 
there  must  be  some  mental  content  even  while 
one  is  waiting  for  possible  answer  ?  How  much 
repetition  is  justifiable?  Is  a  certain  emotional 


192  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

state  to  be  brought  about  only  by  repetition 
of  prayer  phrases?  Is  this  emotion  valuable 
for  itself,  or  entirely  beside  the  point  ?  How 
should  we  characterize  the  states  of  mind  and 
body  when  we  can  pray,  and  those  when  we 
cannot  ?  That  is,  sometimes  we  certainly  feel 
more  like  praying  than  at  others ;  are  these 
times  when  we  are  rested  or  tired,  busy  or 
idle,  when  we  have  done  well  or  done  ill,  when 
we  have  eaten  or  fasted  ?  In  short,  there  are 
endless  questions  which  a  prayer    pedagogy 
might  raise  and  possibly  answer,  but  they  will 
not  be  answered  by  looking  up  treatises  on 
the  philosophy  of  it,  and  writing  the  questions 
in  a  note-book,  they  will  be  answered  only  by 
the  experimental  prayer  of  every  student.  No 
man  was  ever  yet  a  vigorous  thinker  on  any 
subject  who  depended  wholly  on  the  authority 
of  other  people;  he  will  not  be  here.  If  it 
turns  out  that  prayer  justifies  its   existence, 
then  the  art  should  be  passed  on  with  the  ac- 
cumulated wisdom  of  this  scientific  generation. 
Twenty  years  from  now,  a  man  should  know 
whether  he  can  or  cannot  pray  better  con- 
tinuously or  intermittently,   better  with  cer- 
tain personal  habits  or  without  them,  better 
with  active  attention   or  in  passive  reverie, 


PRAYER  193 

better  with  repetitions  or  with  the  phraseology 
of  usual  speech. 

All  this  is  a  matter  of  opinion  already,  just 
as  the  world  knew  something  about  mental 
life  from  simple  emotional  expressions  and  the 
instability  of  attention  to  the  more  complex 
subconscious  processes  and  hypnotism,  long  be- 
fore psychology  as  a  science  was  ever  heard 
of.  We  do  not  need  to  take  courses  in  logic  to 
know  sound  reasoning  from  fallacy,  neither  is 
it  essential  to  study  English  merely  to  talk  it, 
or  hygiene  in  order  to  go  in  when  it  rains. 
Nevertheless,  systematic  experiment  in  science 
does  tell  us  some  things  that  common  obser- 
vation does  not,  and  one  generation  is  able  to 
advance  farther  from  its  parent,  when  the 
heritage  is  an  exact  science,  than  when  it 
comes  merely  in  the  form  of  tradition  or  cur- 
rent opinion. 

To  those  who  protest  that  such  a  systematic 
study  of  prayer  is  impossible,  that  you  strike 
at  the  roots  of  devotion  when  you  analyze  it, 
I  can  only  say  that  that  too  is  a  matter  for  ob- 
servation, and  not  for  a  priori  decision.  Cer- 
tainly if  there  is  any  analogy  between  prayer 
and  the  other  arts,  this  criticism  would  not  hold 
good.  We  have  all  felt  the  difference  between 


194  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

the  appreciative  attitude  of  an  artist  and  that 
of  the  untrained  but  emotional  public.  In  a 
picture  gallery,  the  enthusiastic  but  ignorant 
give  vent  to  such  phrases  as  "  heavenly,"  "  un- 
analyzable  charm/'  "  exquisite  temperament/' 
"poetry  of  imagination/'  etc.,  all  of  which 
are  good  enough  in  their  way,  but  which  serve 
rather  as  outlets  for  feeling  than  as  intelligible 
comments.  The  artists,  on  the  other  hand,  speak 
in  concrete  terms  of  right  and  wrong  colors, 
of  accurate  drawing,  of  composition,  of  treat- 
ment of  light  and  shadows ;  evincing  less  in- 
articulateness of  feeling  and  more  specific  ob- 
servation than  their  non  -  technical  friends. 
There  is  a  certain  college  lecturer  on  Shake- 
speare who  practices  this  principle  in  his  classes. 
His  attention  is  fastened  always  upon  the 
meanings  of  words,  the  philological  differ- 
ences between  our  usage  and  that  of  the  Eliz- 
abethan period,  and  his  argument  is,  that  if 
a  student  actually  understands  the  text  in  all 
the  shades  of  thought  which  language  mirrors, 
the  poetry  speaks  for  itself.  If  a  student  wholly 
understanding  Shakespeare's  language  does 
not  enjoy  it,  he  never  will,  no  matter  how 
much  he  is  assured  that  it  is  enjoyable.  There- 
fore when  a  fine  passage  stands  explained  be- 


PRAYER  195 

fore  his  audience,  and  the  interested  visitor  is 
disappointed  that  nothing  happens  but, "  There 
you  have  it,  I  will  not  insult  your  intelligence 
by  comment,"  he  sometimes  asserts  that  the 
feeling  behind  that  sentence  is  too  cold.  His 

o 

students  understand  him  better. 

I  have  seen  many  concert  audiences,  and  I  am 
especially  familiar  with  an  American  audience 
of  girls  whose  pleasure  in  the  music  is  often 
expressed  by  attitudes  more  or  less  dreamy  or 
ecstatic.  It  has  also  been  my  privilege  to  fre- 
quent more  sophisticated  music-halls,  where 
old  concert  tasters  have  taken  their  programme 
as  one  of  the  necessities  of  life.  I  have  never 
forgotten  one  experience  of  a  string-quartette 
concert,  when  my  seat  was  in  the  midst  of  the 
other  members  of  the  orchestra,  who,  with  me, 
were  listening  to  their  brethren's  performance. 

No  mystic  attitudes  here,  but  the  most  alert 
interest  in  the  treatment  of  rhythm,  of  tempo, 
of  shading,  and  of  technique,  and  enthusiastic 
appreciation  when  these  matters  were  well  man- 
aged. It  might  be  contended  that  the  unin- 

o  o 

structed  girl  gets  more  out  of  her  experience 
emotionally  than  they,  but  even  that  I  will  not 
grant.  With  an  emotional  temperament  and 
intelligence  one  certainly  gets  more  from  any 


196  THE   RIGHT  TO   BELIEVE 

art  than  with  intelligence  alone,  but  granted 
enough  temperamental  background  to  insure 
any  interest  at  all,  intelligence  increases  the 
interest  rather  than  the  reverse.  Twenty  years 
from  now,  the  girls  who  knew  something  about 
music  and  wanted  to  know  more  will  be  the 
ones  who  support  church  choirs,  local  musi- 
cians, and  strain  a  point  to  give  their  children 
lessons.  The  girls  who  repudiated  intelligence 
as  too  cold  a  matter  were  in  reality  enjoying 
their  own  emotion  rather  than  the  music,  and 
the  test  of  time  will  show  it.  That  the  other 
alternative  is  true,  that  is,  that  intelligence 
alone  is  not  enough  for  artistic  appreciation, 
is  obvious  enough.  As  a  certain  museum  offi- 

o 

cial  once  remarked  to  me,  "  Women's  clubs 
know  everything  about  pictures  nowadays ; 
their  dates,  their  first  and  second  manners, 
and  their  development.  They  do  everything, 
in  fact,  but  look  at  them,"  and  I  have  even 
heard  of  what  seems  to  me  the  final  absurd- 
ity, music  lovers  for  whom  the  material 
sound  is  too  crude,  and  who  prefer  to  listen 
in  total  silence,  while  an  open  music  score 
"pipes  to  the  spirit  ditties  of  no  tone!' 
Such  a  refinement  is  beyond  any  to  which 
poor  old  Beethoven  ever  attained,  who  was 


PRAYER  197 

never  resigned  to  his  deafness,  but  who  in 
spite  of  a  vivid  auditory  imagination  longed 
for  his  own  harmonies  to  come  back  to  him 
by  way  of  his  auditory  nerves. 

That  intelligence  in  religious  matters  is  use- 
less without  feeling  is  obvious  enough  from 
its  barren  results,  and  further  from  its  final 
impossibility.  One  can  never  know  the  reality 
of  the  religious  life  unless  he  has  had  it,  any 
more  than  a  man  born  blind  knows  anything 
of  color.  Moreover,  one  will  never  know  any- 
thing from  his  own  experience  about  religion 
unless  he  has  certain  hopes  rather  than  others, 
and  these  hopes  indicate  a  feeling. 

We  therefore  must  presuppose  that  any 
would-be  religious  man  must  have  some  feel- 
ing, some  promptings  to  choose  this  way 
rather  than  the  other,  or  the  subject  would 
not  interest  him  to  begin  with.  Is  it  equally 
essential  that  he  should  have  intelligence? 
We  must  candidly  admit  that  it  is  not.  There 
is  more  real  religion  in  an  untutored  but  con- 
scientious man  than  in  an  intellectual  man, 
who  does  not  hope  for  a  God.  But  is  the  re- 
lioious  man  more  religious  because  he  is  un- 

O  O 

thinking,  or  simply  in  spite  of  it  ?  Would  it 
not  be  better  for  him,  and  for  the  world,  if, 


198  THE   RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

keeping  his  religion,  he  brought  intelligence 
to  bear  upon  it  ?  It  has  been  a  more  healthy 
state  of  society  where  parents  have  loved  their 
children  even  though  they  unknowingly  gave 
them  the  wrong  food  and  air,  than  one  (if 
any  has  ever  existed)  where  their  state  of 
mind  was  indifferent  and  they  coldly  gave 
the  children  their  due  in  hygienic  doses.  In 
the  long  run,  the  feeling  instinct  has  kept 
more  children  alive,  I  believe,  than  the  purely 
scientific  attitude  would  have  done,  for  in 
the  latter  case  there  would  be  no  motive. 
But  it  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  any  woman 
was  a  less  feeling  mother  because  she  at- 
tended to  the  hygiene  of  her  child  with  scien- 
tific accuracy.  A  good  doctor  is  not  less 
sympathetic  because  he  can  operate  without 
fainting ;  why,  then,  should  a  praying  man  be 
less  religious  if  he  can  tell  the  rest  of  us  how 
to  pray,  not  in  vague  terms,  but  in  the  most 
concrete  fashion  possible  ?  It  seems  as  if  all 
vigorous  practice  led  to  greater  naivete. 
When  men  painted,  they  talked  about  grind- 
ing colors,  and  mixing  them  with  water  or 
eggs;  those  of  us  who  cannot  paint  must 
needs  grow  sentimental  or  obscure. 

Christ,   that   Master   of   Prayer,   said  de- 


PRAYER  199 

finitely  :  Do  not  pray  on  the  street-corners  to 
be  seen  and  admired  of  men ;  Do  not  say  the 
same  thing  over  and  over  for  the  sake  of 
speaking  ;  Go  thou  into  a  room,  and  shut  the 
door,  and  pray  thus  and  so,  —  and  He  gave  the 
great  prayer  formula  which  all  of  us  know. 
He  did  not  pretend  to  exhaust  this  subject, 
or,  in  fact,  any  other.  That  was  not  His 
way,  for  His  time  was  short.  His  definite 
charge  to  His  disciples  was  that  they  should 
do  greater  things  than  He  had  done,  preach 
to  more  people,  heal  more  sick,  see  more  of  the 
world,  —  and  among  other  things,  why  not 
give  more  definite  instructions  than  He  had 
ever  done  on  the  technique  of  prayer  ?  There 
must  be  a  self-conscious  period  in  acquiring 
the  mechanism  of  any  art.  With  a  genius  this 
is  short,  with  most  of  us  it  is  very  long.  Any 
one  who  does  not  have  to  attend  to  his  tech- 
nique, because  he  is  an  artist  without  it,  is  a 
happy  man ;  but  any  one  who  refuses  to  at- 
tend to  it,  for  fear  his  emotional  life  will  not 
stand  the  shock,  has  an  emotion  sadly  in  need 
of  props.  If  there  is  anything  in  prayer,  we 
ought  all  of  us  learn  it,  and  practice  it,  and 
teach  it  better  than  we  have  been  taught.  If 

o 

there  is  not,  we  ought  to  stop  it  after  a  fair 


200  THE   RIGHT   TO   BELIEVE 

trial,  and  leave  it  behind  us  as  another  out- 
grown superstition. 

There  is  a  final  objection,  which  may 
naturally  arise  out  of  the  very  argument  we 
have  been  advancing.  Granted  that  praying 
may  be  a  fine  art  with  the  spiritually  gifted, 
we  are  plain  people  and  cannot  aspire  to  its 
perfect  practice.  The  shoemaker  must  stick  to 
his  last,  and  those  of  us  who  must  build  and 
barter,  sew  and  sweep,  have  enough  to  do  to 
manage  that,  without  attempting  what  would 
be  beyond  us.  If  praying  is  an  art  like  writ- 
ing poetry,  like  poetry  we  must  let  it  alone  ! 

To  some  extent  this  may  be  true.  There 
are  doubtless  diversities  of  gifts,  and  some  of 
us  will  inevitably  fall  into  the  Martha  class. 
Nevertheless,  we  must  not  be  compared  with 
others,  but  with  what  we  ourselves  can  develop 
from  our  own  material,  however  poor.  If  we 
take  singing  lessons,  we  may  not  sing  like  Jenny 
Lind,  but  we  shall  sing  better  than  we  could 
without  training.  Moreover,  however  the  arts 
and  labors  of  daily  life  may  become  divided, 
so  that  one  man  does  our  cobbling,  while  we 
do  his  building,  this  division  of  labor  has  its 
limits.  A  man  may  do  your  tailoring,  but  he 
cannot  do  your  eating ;  he  may  do  your  plumb- 


PRAYER  201 

ing,  but  your  praying  you  must  do  primarily 
for  yourself.  We  are  parts  of  a  social  self, 
where  in  a  perfect  state  every  man  would 
regard  another  equal  to  himself,  and  in  which 
one  man  would  no  more  rob  his  brother  than 
his  hand  would  snatch  food  from  his  own 
mouth.  But  we  are  also  individuals,  and  some 
of  our  living,  and  all  of  our  dying,  must  be 
done  alone.  You  may  affirm  that  the  fine  arts 
are  not  in  your  line,  and  while  you  live  an 
impoverished  life  without  them,  you  still  live. 
You  say  morality  is  not  in  your  line,  and  so- 
ciety, the  rest  of  your  larger  self,  shuts  you 
up  or  wants  to.  You  say  religion  and  prayer 
are  not  in  your  line,  and  while  you  do  not 
cut  yourself  off  from  men,  if  you  still  treat 
them  fairly,  you  cut  yourself  off  from  some- 
thing, and  the  only  something  that  can  bridge 
the  £ulf  to  the  eternal  solitude  where  lives 

o 

your  soul. 

If  you  do  not  hope  for  the  bridging  of  this 
gulf,  you  have  not  read  this  book.  If  a  more 
than  human  companionship  and  hence  a  prayer 
communion  is,  however,  the  substance  of 
your  hope,  you  have  as  good  a  right  to  be- 
lieve in  its  possibility  as  in  the  reverse,  and 
believe  you  must,  one  way  or  the  other. 


202  THE  RIGHT  TO  BELIEVE 

If  this  higher  possibility  is  worth  anything 
at  all,  is  it  not  worth  more  than  our  life  would 
indicate,  and  is  it  too  late  for  a  new  prophet 
to  show  us  more  clearly  the  way  to  its  attain- 
ment? 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


?6  1936 


AHT&3  1940 


LD  21-100m-8,'34 


YB  22IC5 


304091 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


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